Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum — Attraction in Hollister

Amazing place, unfortunately our family did not get the full experience on 9/28/24. We enjoyed the golf cart tour and then went over to the museum to finish our visit. As a light skinned American mother, I was eager to take our group of four on vacation, I was appalled by our experience.

The “Children” are of “mixed race” and highly interested in learning about their own culture as it relates to this museum and the theme of the artifacts.

We got our tickets and walked toward the extremely rude female attendant that would “let you in”. In front of us was 2 older Caucasian couples, they were asked “do you want elevator or stairs? Welcome to the museum”, they walked in.

We stepped up, I presented the four tickets for my family. I was stopped and we were told “stay with your mom, no horse play, this is a QUIET place, don’t ruin it for others,” and on and on and ON! And YOU, pointing to my youngest, it is clear YOU are under 16, you must be next to your mother at all times”.

Absolutely ridiculous instructions for young adults who are 14, 23 and 24.

I was so stunned and shocked at the disparity that our family was shown. No doubt, a clearly racial attack on the assumption that my older teen and young adult children were assumed to be rambunctious.

Apparently if you are NOT white, you are in some way going to cause a disturbance in the museum. We went down the stairs and quickly moved through the exhibits. Crying babies, running toddlers and other families were clearly disrupting OUR experience, but never told to quiet down.

As we came back up stairs the racist employee told the other families… “how was your experience?”, we came up next and were told “shut the gate behind you”.

My kids didn’t feel comfortable exploring the gift shop, we quickly exited the building.

In rural Missouri, I expect shallow minded humans. At an educational tourism experience open to the public, I expect to be treated fairly in 2024.

Top of the Rock should be ashamed of themselves. Don’t go here if you are not white. Our amazing, well mannered family that was eager to learn about Native History, had our experience tainted by your ignorant employee who should be...

Zero stars would be more appropriate! My family of 14 of all colors and ages attempted to visit the museum after having a great time at the amazing golf cart tour. After being shuttled to the museum we were instantly met with rude employees. We were behind a group and she handed them their map stated a few rules and they went down the stairs. Our group had additional rules, no horse play, don't touch , stay with your kids under 16, that was not said to to group with kids in front of us. We proceeded down the stairs, half of our group entered a room with another group the other half was still looking at an exhibit. A employee said you need to stop talking so loud. Our first half heard him however the second part of my family was not in that room yet. When they entered the room he yelled it aggressively again. Then went past the other group and us to the 2nd half of our group that just entered which happened to be my 4 black sons! I am white for reference. He immediately got in the face of one and yelled yeah I'm talking to you! I try to diffuse by saying sir they did not hear you they were not in the room yet. The employee proceeded to aggressively yell "you will be escorted out over and over" these tickets are not cheap by the way! We said there are better ways to ask someone to be quiet. and not to get in anyone's face. I realized that it was only my black son's he was addressing. And yes I said " I see this is a race thing" This old man charged me and got an inch away from my face yelling you called me a racist your get escorted out now ! We turned to walk out having no clue where to go just started following the path and he followed us the entire time saying we are getting the HELL out of there. Then he made us leave out the back emergency exit, behind the building ! We were shuttled there and had no idea where to go. A nice lady who saw it go down came out to check on us and left the museum due to what she saw. She was so shocked he acted that way. They called a separate shuttle to pick us up around back and would not let us go to...

Our family group of 8 people (including two children ages 4 yrs. and 11 yrs.) visited this museum last week. Just before entering, we were made to step aside and the children in our group were sternly lectured, in a harsh tone, not to be noisy, touch anything, etc. We were shocked as they had done nothing to deserve this, but understood that children in the past may have been a problem. They were actually very quiet as we waited at the central desk for our turn to enter. Once inside, we broke up into 4 groups of 2 each. We discussed the exhibit, but not loudly at all. As we were leaving, there were two men (guards?) waiting on either side of the stairs. I smiled at the one on my right and said, "next time I hope to be able to spend the whole afternoon here instead of the short half hour we had". He looked sternly at me, put his finger to his lips and said, "Shhh...whisper!". The man across from him on my left did the same thing. Again, I was absolutely in shock and highly insulted as there were no signs saying that we were only allowed to whisper. Outside, my daughter told me that when she attempted to thank the guards, one said, "I could hear all of you coming from way back there." None of us could understand what was going on at all. We talked, but not loudly and our children were on their best behavior. Despite the beautiful collection of ancient artifacts, I will never go back and I will not encourage those I know to go without first telling them of how we...