Oddest Museums in the U.S.

By: Kathleen J. King (View Profile)

Many museums are good for first dates, though the ones mentioned here might best be shared with good friends only—those who also have an interest in the truly odd and bizarre. Be warned: these museums include an assortment of un-PC art, grotesque humor, freak shows, medical mysteries, rare specimens, kitsch, and warped curio cabinets.

Toilet Seat Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Photo source: Nats on flickr (cc)

Joseph Crapper would have been proud. Barney Smith, a retired plumber, transforms the bathroom toilet seat into an artistic creation. Smith’s museum contains more than 600 works of art mounted on toilet seat lids. He mostly finds inspiration from his travels around the world. You can visit this Texan anytime, but you can’t transform your porcelain throne: his toilet seats are not for sale.

The National Atomic Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Photo source: Marshall Astor on flickr (cc)

A Three Mile Island Lamp takes kitsch—or bad taste—to new levels. You can find it at the National Atomic Museum, recently renamed the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. Visitors can view bombs or see exhibits called fallout shelter, Little Al’s Lab, or Radiation 101. The original 1941 Packard Clipper that transported the scientists from the train station to Los Alamos and to the Trinity base camp for testing of the first atomic bomb is there too, but visitors are not allowed to drive it.

Aurora Ice Museum, Fairbanks, Alaska

Photo source: Huei on flickr (cc)

Using 1,000 tons of ice, world champion ice carvers Steve Brice and wife Heather created the Aurora Ice Museum—which includes ice sculptures like an observation tower and circular staircase, jousters on horseback, Christmas tree and polar bear bedrooms, an igloo, and an ice outhouse—and Stoli bar for thirsty tourists. A patented absorption chiller keeps the museum an icy 20 degrees Fahrenheit all year.

Museum of Spam, Austin, Minnesota

Photo source: Eda Cherry on flickr (cc)

In the early 1990s, the term “spam” increasingly referred to unwanted email, much to the chagrin of Hormel Foods, the makers of SPAM, America’s favorite canned meat. In 2001, the museum’s founders opened the Spam Museum to remind Americans of the pleasures of canned pork. A “Wall of SPAM,” a scale model of a SPAM plant, and many other exhibits inside are worth a look.

The Mutter Museum, Philadelphia, PA

Photo source: Hardcore Shutterbug on flickr (cc)

P.T. Barnum liked the odd, the super tiny, the oversized, and the grotesque. The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia honors this tradition, but focuses on unusual medical phenomena. Inside you’ll be treated to babies with two heads, the world’s largest colon, an OBGYN instrument collection, anatomical and pathological specimens, one of the largest collections of skulls in the world, and a wall of “swallowed” objects.

City Museum, St. Louis, Missouri

Photo source: Mike’s Picture Place on flickr (cc)

The City Museum will have you running around, climbing, and sliding down chutes like a ten-year-old again. This three-story architectural marvel is filled with attractions made from reused and recycled materials like old bridges, construction cranes, chimneys, and other St. Louis architectural relics. One zone, called MonstroCity, invites you to climb on a jungle gym made of Saber 40 aircraft fuselages, a fire engine, a castle turret, a cupola over twenty feet tall, and oversized slinkies.

Museum of Jurassic Technology, Culver City, California

Photo source: Trevor Haldenby on flickr (cc)

A mouse sandwich may not seem appealing, but some old wives’ tales claim it prevents whooping cough. David Wilson, who founded the Museum of Jurassic Technology in 1988, is not interested in dinosaurs, but likes to harken back to sixteenth- to eighteen-century Wunder Cabinets. This house of mysteries and oddities holds human horns, specimens of European moles, and a whole assortment of dioramas and exhibits on anything from mobile homes to neurophysiologists, among many other things. If you can’t get to the museum check out the book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology by Lawrence Weschler.

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