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.
Albuquerque, NM
A museum devoted almost entirely to turquoise covers geology, mining, grading, jewelry and the stone's cultural history. The collection is housed in a castle-like building, adding another unusual layer to the niche subject.
Boron, CA
Mining equipment, local artifacts and a full-size twenty-mule-team wagon display preserve the borax history of Boron and the surrounding desert.
Shawano, WI
Twig's preserves the history of Sun Drop and the local bottling business through vintage bottles, machinery, advertising and soda memorabilia. Visitors can watch bottling activity and sample soda, making it a working-industry museum rather than a static display.
Saint Paul, MN
A sprawling model railroad recreates towns, industries and transportation scenes in miniature, with trains circulating through dense hand-built landscapes. The obsessive scale and mechanical detail make it a strong niche-museum stop rather than a generic train display.
Augusta, KS
A free museum displays dozens of vintage and unusual motorcycles in a compact collection outside Wichita. The machines span different eras and styles, making it a strong mechanical-curiosity stop even for travelers who are not dedicated motorcycle enthusiasts.
Covington, KY
Among the eclectic regional-history displays inside the Behringer-Crawford Museum is a preserved two-headed calf, one of the museum's signature curiosities. The museum also contains fossils, historic vehicles and an elaborate model railroad inside a former mansion in Devou Park.
Eveleth, MN
Eveleth's museum preserves the history of American hockey through trophies, equipment and stories from players at every level. Its location on the Iron Range makes the collection inseparable from a region that produced an outsized share of the sport's history.
Fort Smith, AR
The national museum explores the long history of the U.S. Marshals, including the frontier era, federal law enforcement and famous deputies such as Bass Reeves. Its location in Fort Smith directly connects it to Parker-era history.
Keyport, WA
Submarines, torpedoes, diving equipment, and deep-ocean technology fill the U.S. Navy's official undersea museum. The collection includes full-size machines that make underwater warfare and research unusually tangible.
Ishpeming, MI
Ishpeming played a major role in organized American skiing, and this hall of fame preserves equipment, photographs, trophies and stories connected with the sport's development. Hundreds of inductees are represented inside a museum that also traces the strange evolution from early wooden skis to modern competition equipment.
Peaks Island, Portland, ME
This tiny museum is devoted entirely to umbrella sleeves and covers collected from around the world. Reaching it requires a ferry ride to Peaks Island, and its operating schedule is seasonal.
Scottsboro, AL
Inside the famous retailer that sells items from lost airline luggage is a museum of particularly bizarre, valuable or memorable objects recovered from suitcases over the years. The exhibit turns the mystery of lost baggage into a compact cabinet of curiosities.
Fairbanks, AK
This major northern museum combines Alaska Native collections, fossils, wildlife, art and research specimens in a striking hilltop building. Mammoths, ancient animals and objects from across an enormous state make it one of Alaska's richest single-stop collections.
Iowa City, IA
Iowa's oldest university museum combines fossils, taxidermy, geology and large natural-history specimens inside historic Macbride Hall. Its old-school display style gives it the feel of a classic cabinet museum.
Albuquerque, NM
The University of New Mexico maintains a small museum devoted to meteorites, including iron, stony and rare specimens from around the world. Fall 2026 public hours are limited to selected weekday windows.
Harlowton, MT
A two-building local museum mixing fossils, a full-size dinosaur display, ranch and railroad artifacts, and an old horse-drawn hearse among its eclectic collections.
Vicksburg, MS
The recovered remains of USS Cairo, an ironclad gunboat sunk by electrically detonated mines in 1862 and later raised from the Yazoo River. The preserved vessel and artifacts form one of Mississippi's strangest large-scale archaeological museum displays.
Bay City, MI
The retired destroyer USS Edson now serves as a floating naval museum on the Saginaw River. Visitors can tour the ship's decks, weapons systems, living quarters and machinery spaces, and the museum also schedules special overnight and paranormal-themed programs.
Evansville, IN
USS LST-325 is a surviving World War II landing ship of the type used to carry tanks, vehicles and troops directly onto beaches. The restored vessel is now permanently based on the Ohio River in Evansville and offers guided tours through a working piece of wartime naval engineering.
North Little Rock, AR
Visitors can tour the USS Razorback, a World War II-era submarine moored on the Arkansas River. Tight passageways, machinery and crew spaces remain accessible through guided tours.
Quincy, MA
The massive Cold War-era heavy cruiser USS Salem is preserved as a museum ship at the former Quincy shipyard. Visitors can move through cramped compartments, machinery spaces and gun areas inside a vessel large enough to feel like a floating industrial complex.
Muskegon, MI
USS Silversides is a highly decorated World War II submarine preserved as a museum ship beside Lake Michigan. As of September 2026 the submarine itself is temporarily away for scheduled dry-dock work through roughly mid-October, while the shore museum remains open, so OddWay should flag the current limited access.
Price, UT
This university museum combines major dinosaur collections with archaeology from the Fremont and other Indigenous cultures of eastern Utah. Its concentration of locally excavated material gives it stronger OddWay relevance than a generic natural-history museum.
Durham, NC
Hundreds of tubas, sousaphones, euphoniums, helicons, and related brass instruments fill this specialized collection. The museum traces the evolution of low-brass instruments through examples that range from elegant antiques to huge and strangely shaped horns.
