On our way to Utah in the fall of 2020, we added a side trip to the The Orphan Train Complex Museum in Concordia, Kansas.

Cindy had read the book Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline and was intrigued by the story of New York City orphans being loaded on trains west to be adopted. The Kline book wasn’t very complementary about the situation. Between 1854 and 1929 an estimated 250,000 orphaned, abandoned and homeless children were placed in new homes.
Before we toured the complex we learned from a docent that the Kline book wasn’t historically accurate and sensationalized the situation. In real life the orphans were watched over by placement agents who screened prospective adoptee homes and did follow up visits. That’s not to say that the orphans were all happy about the situation. The museum has letters and histories of both successful and not successful placements.