Museums44.5106° N, 108.0855° W
Greybull, WY
An outdoor aircraft collection at a former air-tanker base preserves large firefighting planes and unusual aviation equipment.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
Museums
Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Museums1,031
Suggest a stopSmall, specific collections run by people who care far too much.
- Museums44.0737° N, 103.2061° W
Rapid City, SD
South Dakota Mines displays dinosaurs, marine reptiles, ancient mammals, minerals and fossils recovered from the region's exceptionally rich geology. It is a useful stop for understanding what is actually buried beneath many of OddWay's Badlands and fossil destinations.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums43.6267° N, 89.7732° W
Wisconsin Dells, WI
This compact museum displays replicas and historical examples of punishment and torture devices, pairing grim subject matter with downtown Wisconsin Dells tourism. The attraction operates seasonally, so hours should be checked before routing.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums38.9113° N, 97.2086° W
Abilene, KS
The museum traces the independent telephone industry through switchboards, early handsets, equipment, and communications technology. It is a narrowly focused collection of obsolete machines that most travelers rarely encounter outside technical archives.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums34.0259° N, 118.3951° W
Culver City, CA
This deliberately enigmatic museum mixes genuine history, obscure scholarship, miniature displays and exhibits that resist clear separation between fact and invention.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums33.1272° N, 117.3170° W
Carlsbad, CA
An instrument-industry museum traces how guitars, keyboards, drums and other commercial instruments changed, with many examples visitors can hear or play.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums32.7579° N, 94.3459° W
Jefferson, TX
A highly specific private museum containing hundreds of clocks, surveying tools, measuring devices, mechanical instruments and a huge salt-and-pepper-shaker collection.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums28.3062° N, 81.4523° W
Kissimmee, FL
Military museum with uniforms, vehicles, weapons displays, and local veteran history.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums46.9186° N, 114.0836° W
Missoula, MT
A small aviation museum devoted to mountain flying, smokejumping, and regional aircraft history, with historic planes and equipment near Missoula’s airport.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums36.3712° N, 94.2293° W
Bentonville, AR
MONAH presents thousands of Native American artifacts spanning thousands of years, including pottery, tools, clothing and ceremonial objects. Its compact but wide-ranging collection makes it one of northwest Arkansas’s strongest history stops.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums41.7659° N, 72.6733° W
Hartford, CT
Hidden inside Connecticut's Old State House is a recreated early American cabinet of curiosities packed with taxidermy, unusual specimens and historical oddments. Its best-known residents include a two-headed calf and a giant preserved alligator.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums34.1438° N, 118.2546° W
Glendale, CA
Historic electric signs and kinetic light art turn discarded commercial neon into a museum collection devoted to glowing urban archaeology.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums35.2351° N, 111.6658° W
Flagstaff, AZ
Collections bring together Colorado Plateau archaeology, Indigenous art, geology and paleontology under one roof. It is especially useful for understanding the cultural and natural context behind many northern Arizona OddWay stops.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums38.9651° N, 95.2309° W
Lawrence, KS
A private home houses Randy Walker's dense personal collection of sock monkeys, celebrity oddments, folk creations, unusual biological objects, and other deliberately strange material. Visits are by appointment, making it a true hosted curiosity collection rather than a walk-in museum.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums35.3648° N, 97.4418° W
Oklahoma City, OK
Hundreds of real animal skeletons fill a museum devoted almost entirely to comparative anatomy. The dense displays of skulls, articulated skeletons and unusual species make it one of Oklahoma's clearest cabinet-of-curiosities style museums.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums37.8626° N, 84.5793° W
Nicholasville, KY
Lockmasters Security Institute maintains an unusual museum devoted to locks, safes and physical security technology stretching across centuries. Its collection has included historic locks, safecracking equipment and specialized security devices rarely displayed together elsewhere; visitors should call ahead before planning a tour.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums38.4013° N, 82.4732° W
Huntington, WV
This volunteer-run museum fills roughly 10,000 square feet with vintage radios, televisions, broadcast equipment, computers and other pieces of communication technology. It maintains regular weekend public hours and is free to visit, making it an unusually substantial stop for a specialized collection.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums43.6269° N, 89.7727° W
Wisconsin Dells, WI
A museum dedicated entirely to root beer covers brands, bottling, advertising and the drink's place in American soda culture. Hundreds of labels and artifacts make an everyday soft drink into an unexpectedly deep collecting obsession.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums53.8819° N, 166.5492° W
Unalaska, AK
The museum preserves Unangax̂ archaeology, Russian-American history, fishing culture and World War II material from the Aleutian chain. Its collections provide essential local context for a region where many historic sites are remote, restricted or accessible only by boat and air.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums34.8646° N, 80.7418° W
Waxhaw, NC
Created by JAARS, this specialized museum explores writing systems from around the world and the development of alphabets, scripts, printing, and language. Exhibits range from ancient systems to modern linguistic work, making written language itself the museum’s central artifact.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums33.1504° N, 96.8367° W
Frisco, TX
A major collection of historic locomotives and passenger equipment, including huge steam, diesel and streamlined-era railcars.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums30.3631° N, 103.6502° W
Alpine, TX
A museum at Sul Ross State University covering Big Bend archaeology, maps, Indigenous cultures, ranching and borderlands history.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums34.2327° N, 77.9490° W
Wilmington, NC
Housed in an 1869 brick building near Wilmington’s riverfront, this museum mixes curiosities, unusual artifacts, movie props, true-crime material, strange machines, and sideshow-style displays. Exhibits have included a purported Houdini Ouija board, a crystal skull, and a Van de Graaff generator.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums42.8238° N, 102.9282° W
Chadron, NE
This specialized museum documents the North American fur trade through firearms, trade goods, textiles, tools and other material culture. Its location beside the reconstructed Bordeaux Trading Post gives the collection a direct connection to a historic trading site rather than presenting the subject only in cases.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed