Who Are We?

The Wentworth Military Academy Museum is maintained and run by Alumni “Old Boys”. Family, and Friends whose aim is to keep the comradery and history of Wentworth Military Academy alive for decades to come!!

On April 7, 2017 the Wentworth Military Academy (WMA) Board of Trustees voted to close the Academy based on declining enrollment, an aging campus, and a lack of financial support for continued operations.

This was a gut punch as well as a wake up call for many alumni, cadets, family, friends, and faculty of Wentworth Military Academy. Within hours of the notice going out from the WMA Board, alumni were on the phone with each other all over the country trying to figure out what can/could be done. Work to save the academy? Reopen the academy? Let everything go to the highest bidder at auction? Just walk away and let such a historic institution fade away?
No, we choose to memorialize the institution that changed all our lives by creating and building a museum from scratch.

Through memberships, donations, manpower, and sponsorships to the WMA Museum, the Museum achieved many of the original goals that the alumni and museum founders had set forth. After 3 moves; from 1880 Washington Ave, to 1128th Main Street, to the final location in the old Lexington Post Office building (c. 1912) at 100 S 13th St.

In under a decade The WMA Museum has obtained all the artifacts that were not nailed down on the original campus. We successfully won a lawsuit to secure our artifacts from going to the highest bidder at auction. We built two homes for the museum, the final being the Old Post Office. We have secured the ownership of the Wentworth Mansion (The first barracks of WMA). We have built a world-class park memorializing outdoor artifacts from the original campus. We have become a stronger unit of Alumni, family, friends, and local Lexingtonians (Townies).

We have a final location to memorialize the artifacts, permanently honor, promote the history for future generations, and serve as a rally-point for future Old Boy musters, and continue the tradition of Homecoming on the same dates that the academy used to.

We have seen what a band of motivated WMA Alumni, family, sponsors, faculty and friends can do to acquire, secure, and memorialize the Steven G. Wentworth legacy which began with a handful of young men 137 years ago.

There is still work to be done. Housing a museum in a 1912 building needs love and TLC. We continue to have work weekends, events in the museum to work within the community, and the Missouri historical society. We continue to fundraise, create sponsorship opportunities, and sell items from the museum store. With the continued donations, memberships, and manpower we can secure that what we have built as a family will be around for decades and even a century from now.

To become a WMA Museum member or make a not-for-profit donation, please visit wmamuseum.org/donate

Thanks for your support!
“Achieve the Honorable”