About Us

The Holley Museum of Military History is a military collection of diorama, models and artifacts housed at the Ramada Hotel in Downtown Topeka.

At the present time the museum features 5 galleries, named after world leaders. The first gallery is the Winston Spencer Churchill Gallery and features artifacts from World War II in England.

The second Gallery is the Ronald Wilson Reagan Gallery and features cold war exhibits as well as several United States Navy Artifacts. A German World War two case of artifacts and an Air Force One exhibit are also featured.

The third Gallery is the Dwight David Eisenhower Gallery and features exhibits honoring Kansas War Heroes, a helicopter exhibit, several large World War II dioramas and a case full of World War I artifacts.

The fourth Gallery is the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Gallery. This gallery features a Native American Code Talkers exhibit, a World War Two Home Parlor, the Henry Blake Ice Box Exhibit plus many military dioramas.

The fifth Gallery is the Harry S. Truman Gallery. This gallery features an exhibit on Space, the Tuskegee Airman Exhibit, a Vietnam Memorial Table Exhibit as well as several large military dioramas.

All items in the Museum are signed and a complete audio tour is available.

The hours of operation are Sunday through Monday from 10 AM to 8PM. Admission is free.

If you enjoy the museum and want to help maintain it a donation box is available.

Many of the artifacts in the museum have been collected by Mr. Holley from various locations through out Europe, Russia, the Far East, Australia, Hawaii, and other areas around the world.

The museum is a mixture of out of the box scale models, professional armor and aircraft models and hand crafted dioramas. Also included in the museum are real artifacts representing many major conflicts through out history.

One of the most frequent questions asked of Holley and his volunteers is, "What is a diorama?" The answer is a diorama represents a moment in time. The Gibraltar, Pegasus Bridge, V-1 and V-2 rockets, and the World War I dioramas are very detailed.

There are nearly 30 dioramas in the museum, with the largest being. "The Battle of the Bulge."

The diorama depict the night of December 16, 1944, when his wife's Uncle, Sergeant Major Bryce Quellhorst, was captured by the Germans, and spent the rest of the war in mine different Nazi prison camps.

Some of the true artifacts in the collection include the discharge papers of Holley's great grandfather, George Washington Holley. He was a Union soldier and veteran of the Civil War Battle of Lone Jack. Holley also has a cannon ball and horse brush from that battle. In the collection are items from the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, a World War I mess kit, gas mask, helmet and 1915 Kansas National Guard Pins.

He also has on display a piece of the YB-49 Flying Wing that crashed killing pilot Dan Forbes. That crash is the only Air Force accident to cause the naming of two Air Force Bases. Besides Forbes Air Force Base, Edwards Air Force Base in California was named to honor Co-Pilot, Captain Glen Edwards.

One case in the Reagan Gallery features artifacts from the cold war, as well as aircraft from that period. Another case in the Reagan Room tells the story of the Berlin Wall, including a piece of the wall.

Other artifacts included in the third Gallery, the Eisenhower Room, feature Kansas War Hero's George Chandler, Bob Dole, Monty Parrish, Carl Fyler, Dwight Eisenhower. Sgt. McMurray and others.

The museum is open to the public and is located on the east side of the Ramada Hotel in downtown Topeka, Kansas, just off Interstate 70.

The two compelling reasons for the museum are: To thank Veterans who gave their time and in many cases their lives to protect our freedom. Also the museum will be an educational tool to instruct young people that with out a strong military we may not have the freedoms that we enjoy today.