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.
Upper Providence Township, PA
The American Treasure Tour fills a huge former industrial building with automatic music machines, classic automobiles, animated store displays, advertisements and other pieces of American popular culture. Much of the collection is seen from a guided tram ride through rows of densely packed artifacts.
Altoona, PA
Ironmaster Elias Baker completed this imposing Greek Revival mansion in 1849 after construction costs pushed him close to financial ruin. The Blair County Historical Society now fills the house with period rooms and regional artifacts, with public tours offered during its seasonal museum schedule.
O'Hara Township, PA
This eccentric mansion was built by Charles Brown III and hides secret doors, concealed passages, unusual architecture and a large collection of antique automatic music machines. Tours are by advance appointment only, so this is a planned stop rather than a walk-in museum.
Pittsburgh, PA
Bicycle Heaven combines a working bike shop with a sprawling museum packed with vintage bicycles, rare models, movie bikes and unusual cycling memorabilia. The collection fills multiple rooms and is open to visitors during posted business hours.
North Huntingdon Township, PA
This McDonald's contains a small museum devoted to the Big Mac, which was created by western Pennsylvania franchisee Jim Delligatti in 1967. Displays include memorabilia and an oversized Big Mac sculpture inside an otherwise operating restaurant.
Altoona, PA
More than 35,000 Halloween and macabre objects fill this private museum, ranging from nineteenth-century decorations and costumes to funeral-related pieces and modern holiday collectibles. Tours are arranged in advance rather than offered as normal daily walk-in admission.
Boalsburg, PA
The Boal estate contains an imported European chapel associated with the Columbus family along with an unusually eclectic collection of historic objects. Guided tours include claims of Columbus-family artifacts, religious pieces, weapons, carriages and other material gathered by generations of the Boal family.
Donora, PA
The museum documents the deadly 1948 Donora smog, when industrial air pollution became trapped over the Monongahela Valley and sickened thousands of residents. Photographs, newspapers and artifacts explain the disaster's role in the development of modern American air-pollution law; public hours are limited, so check before traveling.
Philadelphia, PA
Edgar Allan Poe lived in this Philadelphia house during one of the most productive periods of his writing career in the 1840s. The National Park Service preserves the empty rooms and exhibits about Poe's work, including the dark stories that helped define American horror literature.
State College, PA
Penn State's entomology museum maintains a research collection of more than one million arthropod specimens representing thousands of species. A free public gallery displays insects, collecting equipment and other entomological material on weekdays during university operating hours.
Bryn Athyn, PA
Glencairn is a castle-like former residence built between the 1920s and 1930s for the Pitcairn family and now used as a museum of religious art and history. Its galleries contain medieval stained glass, ancient artifacts and objects from religious traditions around the world, with access through the museum's posted visit schedule.
Scranton, PA
This Scranton museum is devoted to escape artist and magician Harry Houdini, with memorabilia, photographs, props and material examining his career and his campaigns against fraudulent spiritualists. Visits are structured as scheduled museum-and-magic experiences rather than ordinary anytime walk-in admission.
Meadville, PA
Meadville was once home to the Keystone View Company, which became one of the world's largest producers of stereoscopic photographs. This small museum preserves cameras, viewers and three-dimensional image sets from that industry and is normally open Saturdays from April through November, with other visits by appointment.
Taylor, PA
Visitors descend roughly 300 feet underground into a former anthracite mine beneath McDade Park. Guides lead groups through old gangways and coal veins while explaining the dangerous work of northeastern Pennsylvania miners; tours operate seasonally.
Monroeville, PA
The Living Dead Museum sits inside Monroeville Mall, the shopping center used for George A. Romero's 1978 *Dawn of the Dead*. The museum follows zombies through cinema and pop culture with props, memorabilia and interactive displays, turning an actual horror-film location into part of the exhibit.
Doylestown, PA
Archaeologist and collector Henry Chapman Mercer filled this castle-like concrete museum with tools and objects documenting preindustrial American life. Thousands of artifacts hang from balconies, walls and ceilings in a towering central atrium, including wagons, boats and machinery suspended overhead.
Orrtanna, PA
Ed and Pat Gotwalt opened the original Mister Ed's roadside store in 1975, and its later incarnation turned Ed's growing elephant collection into an entire museum-and-candy-store destination. Visitors now find roughly 12,000 elephant objects, a teapot museum, whimsical gardens and a huge candy selection, with free museum admission.
Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia's elaborate Mummers tradition fills this museum with feathered costumes, sequined suits, parade props, photographs and artifacts from more than a century of New Year's performances. The collection explains one of the city's strangest long-running civic traditions and is open during posted museum hours.
Philadelphia, PA
The Mütter began with surgeon Thomas Dent Mütter's 1859 donation of 1,700 objects and money to establish a permanent medical teaching collection. It has grown to more than 25,000 objects covering medical history, anatomical specimens and pathology, with ticketed public galleries at the College of Physicians.
Columbia, PA
The National Watch and Clock Museum houses thousands of timekeeping objects ranging from early sundials and tall clocks to pocket watches and modern precision devices. Its galleries make the mechanics and strange variety of human timekeeping the focus of a dedicated public museum.
Lansford, PA
No. 9 operated as an anthracite mine from the nineteenth century until 1972 and was later reopened as a preserved underground attraction. Seasonal tours take visitors about 1,600 feet into the mountain by rail before a guided walk past the mine shaft, mule way and underground hospital.
Ashland, PA
Pioneer Tunnel has taken visitors into an authentic anthracite mine since 1962. Seasonal tours ride underground in mine cars, and a separate narrow-gauge steam train follows the mountainside above Ashland.
Pittsburgh, PA
Saint Anthony Chapel in Troy Hill houses more than 5,000 religious relics, one of the largest publicly accessible collections outside the Vatican. The active Catholic chapel is open during posted hours, and visitors can see reliquaries containing remains and objects associated with hundreds of saints.
Philadelphia, PA
A massive rock-crystal sphere once owned by China's Dowager Empress Cixi sits inside the Penn Museum under heavy security. The ball was famously stolen in 1988 and later recovered, adding a bizarre crime story to an already unusual object that visitors can see with normal museum admission.
