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I'm a fan of museums...big city, small town, national park, national battlefield...it almost doesn't matter to me...almost.
What's your favorite museum? Any surprisingly good museums hidden away in small towns that you've run across?
One museum in a (for most people) out-of-the-way place that I thought was pretty good was the Oregon Trail Museum in Baker City, OR.
I liked the Cheney-Cowles Museum in Spokane, WA.
The High Desert Museum in Bend, OR
The Yakama Nation Cultural Center in Toppenish, WA
The Shiloh National Battlefield Museum
(Of course, I pretty well just love any of the "national landmark" type museums. but am looking for lesser known museums...)
For anyone interested in urban ephemera, there's a phenomenal little place called the City Reliquary tucked away in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It doesn't measure up to traditional museums in terms of size or stature--but it's got a collection of items that traditional museums can only imagine!
Besdies the big ones nroamlly assoiated ;I like the museum of the Pacfic war in Frederriksburg TX;the pensacola naval air museum in Pensacola Fla sut to name two . I always look up such places when visiting area. Many of them like in Colorado I have forgeotten the name of.My dad always liked to stop at the little odd museum when we traveled when i was a kid.In the 50's they wre evry where it seems likethsoe Florida tourist attractions in Florida such as the allagtor parks ;cypress springs etc.
NYC - the Tenament Museum, 108 Orchard St. An old tenament bldg. on the Lower East Side, once a teeming immigrant neighborhood. The tenament apartments were not only home to immigrants, but places where they did piece work to make money. Very interesting place.
LeRoy, NY - near Rochester. The Jello Museum. This small town is the "Hometown of Jello," the dessert was created and first peddled in the village and the surrounding area. The merchant, Orator Woodward, became quite wealthy, finally selling his product to General Foods, and the village used to be marked by the baronial mansions and estates built by his offspring on East Main Street. The Jello museum is behind LeRoy House, an old home devoted to the town's early history, and it contains a wide range of memorabilia. The village is attracive, especially the area near the museum and the former high school...it has a river vista created in the WPA years from a swampy creek that used to flow through the heart of town....this project reputedly due to the influence of Woodward family. For a village of this size the town possesses an impressive rusticated Greek Revival style public library facing this river vista, a donation of the Woodward children as a memorial to the Orator Woodward.
Lisbon - Gulbenkian Museum, nr. the Praça de Espanha. This place is relatively small with very approachable exhibits. Gulbenkian was an Armenian who made an incredible fortune over the divvying up of the oil rights in the Middle East around the time of WW I. He was known as "Mr. 5%" as that was his commission. He became fabulously wealthy and retired to Lisbon, where he collected a stunning array of art works to decorate his home. When he died these became the core of this museum's collection....the scope of his interests is quite impressive, and the fact that this array of treasure was the home furnishings of one man makes it all the more interesting.
Lisbon - Museu Orient, the Doca de Alcantara stop of the #15 tram. This is a relatively small place, and it is devoted to the Asian art works that Portuguese merchants brought back from Goa, Macau, Japan, etc.
Lisbon. Marionette and Puppet Museum in the Alfama. Intriguing little collection, but not for the little kiddies...some of the puppets are a bit sinister. A reminder that puppet shows had a long history as adult entertainment before Sesame Street, Howdy Doody and Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
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