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.
Auburn, IN
This museum occupies the restored 1930 Art Deco headquarters of the Auburn Automobile Company and preserves more than a century of Indiana automotive history. The building itself is part of the attraction, with period offices and showrooms surrounding rare Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg automobiles.
La Porte, IN
La Porte's museum maintains an exhibit on Belle Gunness, the Norwegian-born woman linked to a series of killings discovered after her farm burned in 1908. The case remains unusually murky because the headless woman's body recovered from the house was never conclusively established to be Gunness, and her ultimate fate is still debated.
Muncie, IN
Many episodes of The Joy of Painting were recorded in an unassuming studio inside Muncie's historic Lucius L. Ball home. The room has been recreated as part of the Bob Ross Experience, with original paintings, artifacts and the actual setting associated with one of television's most recognizable painters.
Dale, IN
Dr. Ted Waflart assembled a collection of self-playing musical machines ranging from small music boxes to enormous orchestrions and dance organs. The unusual part is that many of the instruments are demonstrated rather than left silent, but access is generally arranged for pre-scheduled groups, so travelers should call before routing here.
Auburn, IN
This museum is devoted to Ford vehicles and history from the flathead V-8 era, especially 1932 through 1953. Its collection includes dozens of restored automobiles, period displays and a recreation of an early Ford dealership, making it a much more specific stop than a general car museum.
Dana, IN
Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle was born outside the tiny town of Dana, and his birthplace farmhouse has been preserved beside museum galleries housed in Quonset-style buildings. The exhibits focus on Pyle's reporting and the ordinary soldiers whose experiences made his wartime columns famous.
Logansport, IN
Fiberglass Freaks opened its expanded downtown museum in 2024 as a tribute to the 1966 Batman television series and related superhero history. Displays include thousands of items, recreated environments and Batmobile-related material assembled by a builder known for licensed replicas of the show's famous car.
Peru, IN
Located just outside the former Grissom Air Force Base, the museum preserves a large outdoor air park of military aircraft along with indoor Cold War and aviation exhibits. The collection includes fighters, bombers, transports and other aircraft that make the site visually distinct from a conventional local museum.
Mitchell, IN
Virgil "Gus" Grissom grew up in this modest Mitchell house before becoming one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and later commanding Gemini 3. The preserved home is operated as a small museum devoted to his childhood and early life, providing a more personal counterpoint to large space museums.
French Lick, IN
The French Lick West Baden Museum houses an enormous miniature circus display devoted to the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, which once wintered in nearby Peru. The museum describes the sprawling model as containing well over 150,000 individual pieces, creating a dense miniature world of tents, wagons, performers and animals.
Elkhart, IN
The Hall of Heroes is a museum devoted specifically to the history of superheroes across comics, film, animation, toys and related memorabilia. Its large collection includes rare comics, original art and screen-related artifacts, giving OddWay a strong niche museum stop rather than a general history museum.
Buckskin, IN
James Henager assembled a sprawling rural collection of tens of thousands of nostalgic objects, including toys, military items, advertising pieces, radios and pop-culture memorabilia. Because this is a small independently operated museum at 8837 S. State Road 57, travelers should verify current hours before making it a major detour.
South Bend, IN
This newer South Bend museum is devoted to dinosaurs and paleontology, with large fossil displays, mounted skeletons and working scientific material rather than only fiberglass roadside models. Its unusual pairing with the adjacent South Bend Chocolate Company destination makes it a strong family-friendly OddWay stop.
Indianapolis, IN
The museum occupies the 1896 Old Pathology Building of the former Central State Hospital, the oldest surviving pathology facility in the United States. Guided tours retain original laboratories, an autopsy room and an anatomical museum containing preserved specimens, while the remaining former hospital buildings and tunnels elsewhere on the property are posted no-trespassing.
Peru, IN
The museum occupies part of the former Wallace Circus winter quarters, a site that helped make Peru one of America's most important circus towns. Historic wagons, circus buildings, memorabilia and performers' history survive on the property, which is designated a National Historic Landmark.
Butler, IN
This museum preserves the history of monster trucks through full-size historic trucks, photographs, memorabilia and a hall of fame devoted to the sport's major builders and drivers. The rotating vehicle lineup makes it a particularly strong automotive OddWay stop.
Fairmount, IN
Fairmount manages to combine two very different pieces of pop culture in one small museum: hometown actor James Dean and Garfield creator Jim Davis, who grew up nearby. The collection contains Dean memorabilia alongside Garfield material, including a Garfield Trail statue dressed as Dean.
Auburn, IN
NATMUS occupies surviving Auburn Automobile Company factory buildings next door to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum. Its collection includes unusual cars, trucks, prototypes, automotive signs and GM Futurliner No. 10, one of the enormous vehicles built for General Motors' Parade of Progress.
Crown Point, IN
Inside the historic Old Lake County Courthouse is an eccentric collection that has included thousands of pencils alongside mannequins, local memorabilia and displays tied to courthouse history. The strange assortment makes the building more than a conventional courthouse museum, but exhibit access follows the historical society's seasonal hours.
Greencastle, IN
Inside DePauw University's Julian Science and Mathematics Center is a large periodic table containing actual element samples or representative objects whenever safety allows. Instead of treating the periodic table as a flat chart, the installation turns chemistry into a cabinet of physical curiosities.
Crawfordsville, IN
Built around a rotating circular cell block, Crawfordsville's 1882 jail used a hand-cranked mechanism to bring individual cells to the only opening. The preserved structure is now a museum and is notable as the only surviving rotary jail whose cell block can still be operated.
Elkhart, IN
Elkhart's RV/MH Hall of Fame preserves historic recreational vehicles ranging from primitive camping trailers to elaborate motorhomes. Walking through decades of changing interiors and technology makes the collection feel like a timeline of increasingly strange mobile living spaces.
Jeffersonville, IN
The Schimpff family has operated this downtown candy business at its present site since 1891. Its museum preserves antique candy equipment, packaging and memorabilia, and visitors can often watch candy being made on machinery that looks almost as unusual as the collection itself.
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.
