Take a look inside the Titanic Museum housed in a replica of the ship and owned by a man who visited the deep-sea wreck in 1987
Talia Lakritz
- The Titanic Museum Attraction is housed in a replica of the famous ship in Branson, Missouri.
- John Joslyn, who visited the deep-sea wreck of the Titanic in 1987, owns the attraction.
John Joslyn was the second person to ever descend to the depths of the ocean to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.
A former television network executive, Joslyn co-led a $6 million expedition to explore and collect footage of the deep-sea shipwreck in 1987, two years after the site was discovered.
The experience inspired him to open the Titanic Museum Attraction in Branson, Missouri, in 2006.
Public fascination with the Titanic was renewed when a tourist submersible operated by OceanGate carrying five passengers to the famous shipwreck went missing on Sunday. After a four-day search, rescue officials linked debris to the missing Titan vessel on Thursday, and concluded that the submersible likely suffered a catastrophic implosion that killed everyone on board.
"The Titanic Museum Attractions send our thoughts and prayers to those on the OceanGate Expedition crew and their families," a banner on the museum's official site reads.
Take a look inside the Titanic Museum Attraction.
The Titanic Museum Attraction in Branson, Missouri, is one of two Titanic-themed museums owned by John Joslyn, who visited the deep-sea wreck in 1987.
Joslyn and his wife, Mary Kellogg-Joslyn, opened the museum in Missouri in 2006, and a second location in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in 2010, according to the Springfield Business Journal.
The museum is housed in a half-scale replica of the actual ship, with some features like the grand staircase built to scale.
The staircase replica cost $1 million to construct, according to Explore Branson.
Visitors receive a boarding pass with the name of an actual Titanic passenger at the entrance to the museum and learn more about them throughout the exhibits.
By the end of the tour, visitors learn what became of their passenger — whether they survived the wreck or tragically perished after the ship hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912.
Replicas of first-class cabins show what the luxurious side of the ship looked like.
John Jacob Astor IV was the Titanic's richest passenger, and widely believed to have been the richest man in the world when he died in the wreck. He was worth an estimated $150 million, or $4.5 billion in today's dollars.
Third-class cabin replicas display the stark class differences of those on board.
Between 700 and 1,000 third-class passengers sailed on the Titanic, and they all had to share two bathtubs, according to ABC News.
The museum also features interactive exhibits, allowing visitors to feel the dramatic slope of the deck as the ship sank.
The ship broke in two pieces as it sank — a fact that was disputed for 73 years until the wreck was finally found on the ocean floor.
A sample of 28-degree water allows guests to feel how cold the ocean was in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, when the ship went down.
Most passengers who ended up in the water died from hypothermia within 15 minutes.
Artifacts from the wreckage pay tribute to the victims, while the Survivors' Wall of Stories preserves the testimonies of those who lived.
With more than 400 items from the Titanic, the museum's collection is valued at over $4 million, according to Explore Branson.
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