Dane Gummig, Whittier, California, gets a tour from Susie Hackathorn of the Christmas trees on display on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017 at the Territorial Capital Museum in Lecompton, Kansas. The museum has around 150 trees on display on three different levels.

When Dennis Gowing brought his 15-year-old granddaughter Saturday to the Territorial Capital Museum in Lecompton to see the nativity scene he made for the museum, she couldn’t see his handiwork for the trees.

“All she was interested in was the trees,” Gowing said. “I think she took a picture of every one.”

If so, Emily Gowing, of Tonganoxie, photographed 146 decorated Christmas trees at the museum’s annual holiday display.

The museum started putting out a few decorated trees for the Christmas season about 15 years ago, said Paul Bahnmaier, president of the Lecompton Historical Society. Three years ago, the historical society decided to make the trees the focus of the museum during the holidays.

“It mushroomed from there,” he said. “I think it’s the best display of antique Victorian decorations and collectible ornaments there is. I don’t think there is anything like it in the U.S. As one of our volunteers said, ‘There’s a lot of history in those trees.'”

An ornament commemorating President Abraham Lincoln sits within an American-themed Christmas tree on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017 at the Territorial Capital Museum in Lecompton, Kansas. The museum has around 150 Christmas trees on display.

About 25 volunteers helped with putting the trees on display. The exhibit opened Nov. 1, but Bahnmaier said the museum really got in the holiday spirit when the exterior of the building was decorated the week before Thanksgiving. The Christmas trees will remain on display until the new year, he said.

The majority of the trees may be of the modern, artificial variety, but there is a large, elaborately decorated natural tree on the second-floor stage where the museum’s annual Vespers will be performed at 2 p.m. Dec. 3. There also are a few rarities that show there is nothing new about the search for alternatives to natural trees.

“We have a couple of 100-year-old feather trees,” Bahnmaier said. “They were made of goose feathers. Some of the feathers have deteriorated over the years, but you can still see goose feathers dyed green.”

The family of A.K. Winter donated one of the feather trees when he died in 2014 at 90 years of age, Bahnmaier said.

“He brought it over from Germany, but he didn’t know how old it was,” he said.

Another tree in the museum’s collection has branches made of a product that found a market in the Great Plains because of the scarcity of trees, Bahnmaier said.

“We have a barbed-wire tree a member donated,” he said. “We really don’t know where it came from, but barbed wire is certainly something you could use if you were someplace without many trees.”

The museum started its collection of antique ornaments through the donations from historical society members, Bahnmaier said. The collection continues to grow as more visitors view the annual display.

“We get them from people who come through and say they would like to donate their decorations or ornaments because no one in their families wants them and they don’t want to see them lost,” he said. “It’s a good way to preserve the ornaments forever.”

The trees are a popular draw, Bahnmaier said.

“We have people who return every year to see what’s new and bring their friends,” he said.

Not all the ornaments donated to the collection date to the 1900s, and viewers can see how decorations evolved through the years, said museum staff member Cynthia Breitenbach. Those from the mid-20th century strike a nostalgic note with many visitors, she said.

“It’s so fun to see people come in and say, ‘I remember we had decorations just like that when I was a kid,'” she said. “I’ve heard people say they want to take them home with them.”

There are few if any visitors who remember the shiny metal balls like those gracing the large tree at the intersection of the museum’s entry hallway and ground-floor central aisle.

“Those are weighted balls that were used to hold candles,” Breitenbach said. “There are other candleholders that are braided into the tree limbs.”

A nearby tree decorated with candy canes is particularly popular with younger visitors, Breitenbach said.

“We call it the candy tree,” she said. “The purpose of the tree is so we have candy for the children who come through on school tours. We have to refill it all the time.”

There are trees decorated in the style of Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and other nations, Breitenbach said. There’s a University of Kansas tree with Jayhawk ornaments beside a Kansas State University tree with Wildcats hanging from its branches. Yet another tree is adorned with owl ornaments, the mascot of the now-closed Lecompton High School.

The museum, 640 E. Woodson Ave., is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday though Saturday and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday.