He made use of this fame starting in the summer of 1861, together with ventriloquist and magician J. G. Kenyon, by opening an exhibit, first in Eureka and then in San Francisco in August of that same year. Kinman displayed his "curiosities" including an elkhorn chair, mounted grizzly bears, several fiddles, and scalps, and gave a lecture. They then toured gold mining camps and the San Francisco Bay area as entertainers. Later he opened a traveling "museums of curiosities" in Eureka, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. During his trip to the East Coast in 1864-1866, Kinman exhibited his curiosities including his chairs, primarily in Pennsylvania and Illinois. He took a ten-year-old Native American boy, named Burtch or Burtchfield, with him on this trip, but Burtch died in December, 1864. Kinman said that he took the boy on the trip because he had killed both of Burtch's parents. Kinman may have also displayed his chairs at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. As late as 1885, Kinman opened a museum in Los Angeles with his sons Carlin and Roderick. Kinman first used the large number of elkhorns shed near his farm every year to create a fence. With the help of George Hill, about 1856 he created his first elkhorn chair, which he traded to Dr. Josiah Simpson of Fort Humboldt for a telescope. The construction of an elkhorn chair included using matching horns to make the front legs and arms of the chair. These horns interlocked with another matching pair, which formed the rear legs and the back of the chair. An elk-hide seat was added, along with actual elk feet as the feet of the chair, and the horns were connected beneath the seat. Inspired by the 1856 election of James Buchanan, a fellow Pennsylvanian, to the presidency, Kinman built his first presidential elkhorn chair and brought it to Washington. He arranged free passage on the ship "Golden Age" to Panama, then to New York, and finally to Washington. With some help from Peter Donahue and O.M. Wozencraft, on May 26, 1857, after an introduction from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs James W. Denver, Kinman presented the chair to Buchanan. The President was so pleased by the present that he bought Kinman a rifle and two pistols in return.