The Legend Lives On At The World's Largest Museum Attraction

By Ron Marr

For the uninitiated, Branson, Missouri, is considered the “Nashville of the Ozarks.” It's a label justifiably earned, as this once-small town – barely an eye-blink on the map in the early 1960s – now attracts more than seven million visitors per year. They come for the country music, as virtually any star you can name has performed, is currently performing, or will perform here at one point or another during the course of their career. They come for the ornate theaters, fifty-seven thousand seats in total, which is almost ten thousand more than on Broadway. They come to enjoy not just country acts but also full-scale Broadway productions and massive amusement parks, such as the legendary Silver Dollar City. They come for the food, for the beauty of the surrounding Ozark hills, and for the family atmosphere that is the hallmark of this southwest Missouri entertainment Mecca.

At present, and the numbers increase almost daily, Branson boasts four hundred restaurants; two hundred hotels, motels, or resorts; five thousand camping spaces; nine golf courses; and countless shops, stores, and attractions. There are options for those on a budget; there are options for those who wish to go first-class. There are options which cover the entire spectrum of price, class, and accommodation.

People come to Branson for a host of reasons, but since last year, there's a new and unusual reason to make the jaunt to the Ozarks. And that is to see the world's largest Titanic museum attraction.

With its one-hundred-foot smokestacks easily visible from a distance, this half-scale replica of the ill-fated luxury liner towers above Branson's neon-lit Country 76 Boulevard. Families, the young, the old, and all in between snap countless photos from the parking lot before they ever enter the museum. And once they enter, they feel as if they have traveled back in time, that they are experiencing firsthand both the glamour and tragedy that has made the name Titanic a household word for nearly one hundred years.

The seventeen-thousand-square-foot Titanic Museum is historically authentic from top to bottom and bow to stern. Visitors approach the ship through a covered area lined with numerous placards describing the events that led up to the ship's doomed, maiden voyage. In the background, period music, reminiscent of the James Cameron movie of the same name, wafts through the air. After entering through an iceberg, you become a passenger and are presented with a boarding pass bearing the name and brief biography of an actual Titanic passenger. You will find out if your passenger survived in the museum's Memorial Room.

A self-guided tour features more than four hundred priceless Titanic artifacts and a seemingly endless cavalcade of historical information and interactive exhibits. You will feel the twenty-eight-degree water that was the final resting place of almost 1,500 doomed voyagers, feel the weight of a single scoop of coal, and think of the men who spent endless days feeding the 159 ravenous furnaces of the boiler room. You will see personal letters, countless photos, a perfectly re-created Marconi Wireless Room, and the life vest worn by the pregnant, eighteen-year-old bride of John Jacob Astor. Astor himself, holding true to the honorable dictates of "women and children first," gave his life so that others might survive. In total, twenty elaborate galleries located on two separate stories chronicle the Titanic in the most vivid detail imaginable.

Most visitors spend from an hour and a half to two hours touring the galleries, but it is entirely possible to spend even more time.

The museum arose from the nearly lifelong fascination with the Titanic held by television producer John Joslyn. John first encountered the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Titanic as a boy. Growing up in Wisconsin, he chanced to read the book Sea Disasters, published by the Columbia House Book Club. From that day, he was hooked. Many years later, in 1987, John found himself co-leader of a six million dollar expedition to the site of the sinking, discovered just two years previous by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the French exploratory agency, IFEMER. The mission of the team was to explore the wreckage, retrieve artifacts, and bring back film footage of the encrusted remains, which rest twelve thousand feet below the surface of the icy North Atlantic.

The result of this expedition was the television special, Return to Titanic … Live, which John co-produced with Doug Llewelyn and which aired in October 1987. The broadcast would turn out to be the second highest rated, syndicated show of its time. And John's plan to open a Titanic museum, the likes of which the world had never seen, began to take shape.

The dream took twenty years to reach fruition. However with the invaluable assistance, advice, and organizational skills of his wife Mary Kellogg-Joslyn, the museum finally sprang to life. Mary had spent twenty years as an executive vice president with the Walt Disney Company, as a producer of Live with Regis, among other things, and John fully acknowledges that her creative talents and "coolness under fire" allowed the dream to become a reality.

The success, judging by the crowds which appear daily, was near instantaneous.

Of the more than four hundred artifacts in the museum, all were recovered either from survivors or the debris field of the Titanic, not taken from the undersea wreckage itself. Most were acquired from private collections and individuals.

As a precursor to the full tour, visitors view an eighteen foot long, 1:48 scale model of the Titanic, which required two years of painstaking craftsmanship by English artist Peter Davies-Garner. The model is so close to the original Titanic that Davies-Garner even fashioned tiny ceiling lamps, drinking fountains, and doorknobs and installed ninety-six thousand miniature rivets. Also found early on in the tour are wall-sized, glass etchings of the faces of various passengers and crew members, some of whom survived, some of whom perished.

The walk through the galleries continues, and visitors encounter areas chronicling The Shipyard, where the Belfast firm of Harland and Wolff designed and created the Titanic; The Boiler Room; and the Father Browne Gallery. The latter holds the photographs of the late Father Francis Mary Hegarty Browne, who traveled on the Titanic from Southhampton, England, to Cherbourg, France, to Queenstown (now known as Cobh), Ireland. Revered as one of the most prolific photographers of the first half of the twentieth century,
Father Browne was fortunate that he disembarked in Ireland. So was the world. The numerous images he recorded on his brief Titanic voyage comprise the only true, pictorial record of the great vessel. He shot a final photo as Titanic left Queenstown for New York, the last view that the world would ever have of the liner, until the discovery of her wreckage at the bottom of the ocean seventy years later.

Menus from the ship's various restaurants, clothing from actual passengers, personal memorabilia, and letters from survivors are only a small portion of the treasures that reside within the hull of the Titanic at Branson. Again, the insistence for historical accuracy is evident with the magnificent, full-scale replica of the Grand Staircase, popularized in the blockbuster movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, as well as in reproductions of both first-class staterooms and third-class steerage berths. Artifacts include a pair of priceless, original silk gowns designed by world-renowned couturiere Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, who was a passenger onboard. Her Lucille Ltd. brand was all the rage for the upper-crust ladies of the Edwardian era. A fully outfitted Marconi Wireless Room, from which radio operators stuck to their posts and called for help until overtaken by frigid waters, was reconstructed from photographs. Collecting the necessary equipment and rebuilding the system in its entirety was a task which required well over a decade.

A full-scale replica of Lifeboat No. 6 is found in the Interactive Gallery with voice recordings from those who rode the lifeboats to safety. One of the most poignant and eerie items in the museum is a simple pocket watch, retrieved from an unidentified body. The hands of the watch are permanently frozen in time, fifteen minutes after Titanic slipped beneath the waves.

While the Titanic Museum has become one of the most popular attractions in Branson, it is far more than that to John Joslyn.

"From the beginning I knew Titanic's story was timeless and would be told and retold for generations to come. Unfortunately, myth and mystery attached themselves to her legacy over the years, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction," John says. "I was determined – obsessed really – to get it right. After my visit to the decaying hulk of that once-magnificent ship, I felt obligated to honor the people who faced death that cold April night in 1912. I knew then that their true stories of courage, sacrifice, and survival were the real building blocks of an enduring Titanic tribute."

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Labels: Branson, Missouri, Museum, Titanic