Museums35.7628° N, 117.3731° W
Trona, CA
A small desert museum preserves mining, mineral and community history from the unusual industrial town built around Searles Lake.
- 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.
- Museums43.4070° N, 70.4896° W
Kennebunkport, ME
The Seashore Trolley Museum preserves a huge collection of historic streetcars, buses, rapid-transit vehicles, and other public transportation equipment. Seasonal operating days can include rides aboard restored railway vehicles.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums47.5980° N, 122.3249° W
Seattle, WA
Rows of playable pinball machines trace the evolution of the game across decades. Rather than viewing the collection behind glass, admission is built around actually using the machines.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums27.8002° N, 97.4515° W
Corpus Christi, TX
The Quintanilla family museum preserves stage outfits, awards, vehicles and recording memorabilia connected to Tejano star Selena.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums48.0840° N, 123.1016° W
Sequim, WA
The museum displays actual bones and tusks from the Manis Mastodon, a roughly 13,800-year-old discovery important to the study of early human activity in North America. It provides a legitimate public alternative to visiting the protected archaeological site itself.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums42.4966° N, 96.4147° W
Sioux City, IA
A decommissioned U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inspection vessel now serves as a floating museum beside the Missouri River. Visitors can walk through the ship while learning about river travel and Lewis and Clark history.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums40.3085° N, 105.5341° W
Estes Park, CO
The historic lodge formerly known as the Baldpate Inn maintains a huge collection of keys donated by visitors from around the world. The Key Room turns an operating mountain lodge into one of Colorado's stranger object-collection stops.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums60.1026° N, 149.4377° W
Seward, AK
The museum interprets Seward's railroad, Indigenous, maritime and 1964 earthquake history inside a striking modern public building. Its earthquake material is especially useful context for the reshaped waterfront outside.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums44.3732° N, 73.2323° W
Shelburne, VT
Rather than fitting its collection into one building, Shelburne Museum spreads art, Americana and historic structures across a large campus. Its stranger holdings include an entire steamboat brought inland, a lighthouse, circus material, historic houses and other full-size structures collected as museum objects.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums40.0660° N, 105.2026° W
Boulder, CO
A specialist collection of Shelby Cobras, GT40s and other historically important performance cars. Public hours are limited compared with a conventional museum, so visitors should verify the collection's schedule before routing here.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums34.8412° N, 82.4084° W
Greenville, SC
The former home of baseball legend “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was moved beside Fluor Field and transformed into a museum. Exhibits cover Jackson’s remarkable playing career and the enduring controversy surrounding the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums47.5381° N, 116.1213° W
Kellogg, ID
Housed in the historic Bunker Hill Staff House, this museum covers mining, smelting, geology and community life across the Silver Valley. The museum is seasonal and may arrange special tours outside normal dates.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums43.0218° N, 112.4113° W
Fort Hall, ID
Museum on the Fort Hall Reservation presenting Shoshone-Bannock culture, history and art from a tribal perspective. Visit only during public hours and follow all reservation/site rules.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums43.8598° N, 85.8483° W
Baldwin, MI
Raymond Overholzer spent years turning naturally fallen pine roots, stumps and branches into highly polished furniture without conventional metal fasteners. The hunting-lodge museum now contains more than 200 of his handmade pieces, including enormous tables, beds and chandeliers.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums33.6552° N, 101.8210° W
Lubbock, TX
A museum devoted to the World War II military glider program, including a restored CG-4A glider and stories of pilots who landed silently behind enemy lines.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums40.2208° N, 74.0000° W
Asbury Park, NJ
Rows of playable pinball machines and classic arcade games fill this boardwalk museum, with machines spanning many decades of amusement history. Admission is time-based rather than coin-operated, so the collection functions as both museum and working arcade.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums36.8258° N, 79.3987° W
Chatham, VA
Tucked into a working funeral home, this small museum preserves antique caskets, embalming equipment, hearses, burial clothing and other artifacts from the funeral profession. Because it is attached to an active business rather than a conventional attraction, visitors should verify hours before making a special trip.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums42.4952° N, 96.4154° W
Sioux City, IA
Life-size figures, mechanical displays and immersive scenes interpret the Lewis and Clark expedition beside the Missouri River. Its theatrical presentation makes the history feel more like a staged environment than a traditional museum gallery.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums42.1038° N, 123.6815° W
Cave Junction, OR
One of America's earliest smokejumper bases preserves buildings, aircraft history and equipment from the era when firefighters parachuted from here into remote wildfires.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums57.0495° N, 135.3379° W
Sitka, AK
The museum preserves objects and archives spanning Tlingit history, Russian America, territorial Alaska and the modern city. Its locally focused collections help connect the many separate historic layers packed into central Sitka.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums59.4557° N, 135.3118° W
Skagway, AK
Housed in a distinctive former school and federal building, the city museum preserves Gold Rush, Native, transportation and local civic history. The building's fortress-like stone lower level and eclectic collection make it more atmospheric than a generic town museum.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Museums45.5182° N, 122.6834° W
Portland, OR
A compact oddities shop and museum combines taxidermy, natural-history curiosities, macabre objects and rotating displays.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Museums38.4591° N, 105.2507° W
Cañon City, CO
Along Cañon City's narrow one-way Skyline Drive, an interpretive pullout points out a line of ankylosaur tracks preserved high in the tilted rock. The same razorback road was built by prison labor in 1905, giving the stop an unusual overlap of fossil and dark local history.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Museums41.5363° N, 72.0815° W
Norwich, CT
Among the art and historical collections at the Slater Memorial Museum is a preserved human arm brought back from Egypt during the nineteenth century. The unexpected mummy fragment is one of the strangest objects in an otherwise traditional museum.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed