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.
Dover, NH
The Woodman Museum is an old-fashioned local museum packed with the kind of objects that rarely survive modern exhibit design. Its collections have included taxidermy, a four-legged chicken, a man-eating clam shell, military artifacts and other curiosities spread through several historic buildings. Seasonal hours make this a check-ahead stop. Secondary source: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/21104
New Harmony, IN
Founded in 1838 with help from scientist and philanthropist William Maclure, the Working Men's Institute is Indiana's oldest continuously operating public library. Its upstairs museum contains natural-history specimens, artifacts and collections that preserve New Harmony's unusually dense legacy of utopian communities and scientific experimentation.
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Specialized museum documenting the history and human impact of the AIDS epidemic.
St. Louis, MO
The World Chess Hall of Fame combines rotating art and history exhibitions with a monumental Staunton king standing outside the building. The giant chess piece is Guinness-recognized and can be seen independently of the free museum galleries.
Joshua Tree, CA
A tiny converted photo booth is packed with crocheted animals and objects, forming one of Joshua Tree's smallest and most specific museums.
Long Beach, WA
A museum devoted to kites documents their art, engineering, military uses, and cultural history. Long Beach's windy coast makes the narrow specialty feel especially tied to place.
Lucas, KS
Artist Erika Nelson created miniature versions of oversized roadside attractions from around the country, turning roadside gigantism back into tiny objects. The tongue-twisting collection functions as both museum and affectionate parody of American road-trip culture.
Garden City, KS
The Finney County Historical Museum displays a huge trichobezoar removed from a cow's stomach at a local packing plant. Once far heavier when wet, the dried hairball remains an unusually tactile museum object and one of Kansas's strangest documented artifacts.
Columbus, IN
Inside the kidscommons children's museum, visitors can climb into a comically oversized toilet that doubles as part of the building's interactive plumbing-themed exhibit. The attraction is intentionally playful rather than a world-record engineering claim, but its giant scale makes it one of downtown Columbus's stranger indoor stops.
Branson, MO
Started in 2001 when collectors Tom and Wendy Beck moved their collection from Texas to Branson. It now fills more than 26,000 square feet across two buildings — over a million toys in six collections, from the 1800s to modern pop culture. Ticketed, with seasonal hours.
Smithfield, VA
A Smithfield ham cured in 1902 was forgotten in storage until meat magnate Pembroke Gwaltney Jr. turned it into a publicity object and carried it to events. The famously ancient ham is now displayed at the Isle of Wight County Museum alongside the museum's equally odd World's Oldest Peanut.
Superior, AZ
A tiny roadside building near Superior has long advertised itself as the World's Smallest Museum and packs local curiosities into an intentionally miniature space. It is a classic low-budget desert roadside oddity.
Wrangell, AK
The museum brings together Tlingit history, Russian America, fur trade, gold rush and local objects from one of Alaska's oldest continuously occupied communities. It gives unusually layered context to a town that changed colonial hands several times.
Marion, OH
The Wyandot Popcorn Museum fills a large historic building with antique popcorn wagons, peanut roasters and other equipment from the history of America's popcorn industry. The museum is seasonal and closes for part of the year, so visitors should check current hours before making it a route stop.
Thermopolis, WY
A major dinosaur museum paired with active fossil dig sites, including exceptionally large and unusual mounted specimens.
Delray Beach, FL
Original museum building modeled after a traditional Japanese villa.
Seattle, WA
This century-old waterfront shop mixes souvenirs with long-running displays of shrunken-head lore, mummies, taxidermy, odd artifacts, and sideshow-style curiosities. It is a surviving example of the old tourist curiosity-shop tradition.
Little Falls, NJ
This museum at Montclair State University preserves memorabilia from Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, including championship material, photographs and artifacts from his baseball career. Exhibits also examine Berra's military service and the famous sayings associated with him.
Columbus, IN
Zaharakos opened in 1900 and preserves an elaborate turn-of-the-century soda-fountain interior filled with marble, stained glass and mechanical music machines. The business functions as both an operating restaurant and a small museum, allowing visitors to eat among restored pieces of early American soda-fountain culture.
Bradford Township, PA
The current Zippo/Case museum opened in 1997 after an earlier museum proved too small for the growing collection. Visitors now find the first Zippo lighter, rare Case knives, military and advertising exhibits, the working Zippo Repair Clinic and an enormous Zippo-and-knife display outside; admission is free.
Las Cruces, NM
New Mexico State University displays petrified wood, fossils and polished mineral specimens from the Zuhl collection in a museum that feels halfway between geology lab and gemstone gallery. Campus hours should be checked before visiting.
Lewes, DE
Inside Delaware's Dutch-style Zwaanendael Museum is a classic Fiji-style merman — a grotesque composite curiosity made from animal parts — displayed alongside maritime and shipwreck history. It is one of the state's strongest museum oddities.
Portland, OR
This small artist-run museum presents invented natural history, faux scientific specimens and elaborate assemblages from the imaginary 'Zymoglyphic' world; hours are limited.
