Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Small, specific collections run by people who care far too much.
Des Moines, IA
Iowa's state history museum mixes political artifacts with archaeology, natural-history material and objects from everyday life across the state. Its larger collections provide context for many of OddWay's stranger Iowa stories.
Ogdensburg, NJ
An underground zinc mine has been transformed into one of New Jersey's strangest geology museums. Tours descend into the mine and pass the fluorescent Rainbow Tunnel, while the surface museum preserves an enormous collection of glowing minerals from the famous Franklin-Sterling Hill mining district.
Hays, KS
The Sternberg focuses on fossils and natural history from the central plains, including dramatic marine reptiles from the ancient inland sea. Its famous 'fish-within-a-fish' fossil and extensive Cretaceous collection give it a strong prehistoric OddWay hook.
Fortine, MT
A private museum with a collection of historic military aircraft in an unusually remote setting. Visits are by advance appointment, and directions are supplied through the museum.
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Specialized archive and museum documenting LGBTQ history and culture.
South Bend, IN
South Bend's Studebaker museum preserves vehicles and artifacts from the company that evolved from nineteenth-century wagon building into a major automobile manufacturer. Among its most unusual historic vehicles are presidential carriages, including the carriage associated with Abraham Lincoln's final trip to Ford's Theatre.
Grand Island, NE
Stuhr combines a striking modern museum building with a recreated 1890s railroad town and historic structures. The juxtaposition of formal architecture, working demonstrations and reconstructed streets gives it more route value than a conventional regional museum.
Pekin, ND
Historic buildings gathered into a village preserve churches, homes, a school and other pieces of rural North Dakota life. The clustered structures make the site resemble an intentionally assembled ghost town on the prairie.
Groton, CT
The world's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, is preserved beside the official U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum. Visitors can descend into the submarine's cramped interior and explore the strange engineering of life underwater.
Delta Junction, AK
A relocated early-twentieth-century roadhouse preserves the kind of isolated lodging used by travelers on Alaska's pre-highway trails. Period rooms and the log building itself evoke an era when overland travel depended on widely spaced shelter stops.
Metropolis, IL
Tens of thousands of Superman collectibles, costumes, props, toys, comics, and memorabilia fill a museum directly beside the town's giant Superman statue.
Lewes, DE
The Lewes Historical Society operates a recreated colonial tavern inside the circa-1740 Stockley-Street House, drawing inspiration from a real local tavern that operated around the turn of the nineteenth century. Historic drinks, period surroundings and occasional community events turn the preserved house into something much more experiential than a conventional museum room.
Ville Platte, LA
The museum documents swamp pop, the South Louisiana blend of rhythm and blues, country and Cajun influences that produced a distinctive regional sound. Displays focus on performers, recordings and local music infrastructure.
Wilton, ME
The Wilton Farm and Home Museum displays a life-size figure of Sylvia Hardy, a Maine woman who stood more than seven and a half feet tall and later toured with P.T. Barnum’s shows. The exhibit includes one of Hardy’s actual dresses, making her extraordinary height much easier to comprehend.
Newberry, MI
This seasonal museum preserves the machinery, buildings and daily-life artifacts of Michigan's Upper Peninsula logging era. Its grounds include reconstructed camp spaces and equipment that show how crews lived and worked when timber drives shaped much of the region.
Talkeetna, AK
Historic school buildings hold climbing, railroad and town artifacts, including material tied to Denali expeditions. The museum helps explain why tiny Talkeetna became both a mountaineering base and a center of Alaska eccentricity.
Tallahassee, FL
A 'collection of collections' featuring vintage cars, authentic movie Batmobiles, antique machines, and assorted Americana.
Pendleton, OR
Operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the museum presents Plateau history and culture from Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla perspectives.
Uncasville, CT
Founded in 1931 by Mohegan medicine woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon with her father and brother, this is one of the oldest Native American-owned and-operated museums in the United States. Its collections and setting preserve Mohegan material culture from a community-controlled perspective.
Ellsworth, ME
This hands-on museum preserves working switchboards, telephone exchanges, switching systems, and equipment spanning generations of communication technology. Its limited seasonal schedule and appointment options make it a check-ahead stop rather than a spontaneous year-round visit.
Cartersville, GA
A large science museum whose collections include dinosaurs, fossils, minerals, historic vehicles and space artifacts. Its gem and mineral galleries and fossil displays make it particularly useful to OddWay as a physical cabinet-of-curiosities stop rather than only a children's science center.
Camden, TN
Birdsong Resort's pearl operation interprets Tennessee River freshwater pearls, mussels and the unusual industry built around them. Museum access and pearl-farm activities can be seasonal or scheduled, so check before making a dedicated trip.
Huntsville, TX
A museum covering Texas prison history with confiscated weapons, inmate art, an electric chair and a full-size replica prison cell.
Waco, TX
A state museum devoted to the Texas Rangers, with weapons, badges, crime-history exhibits and material from both real law enforcement and pop culture.
