Bagley Wildlife Museum – Bagley, Minnesota - Atlas Obscura
Places near me Random place
Bagley Wildlife Museum is permanently closed.

Bagley Wildlife Museum

Bagley, Minnesota

The Largest Little Museum in the Northwest. 

View all photos
Antelope materializing from a diorama.
Antelope materializing from a diorama.
37
127
Top Places in Minnesota
ArtCart Taxi shanty transports visitors from the parking lot by pedal power.
Art Shanties at Lake Harriet
Minneapolis, Minnesota
The Soap Factory
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Lark Toys
Kellogg, Minnesota
 See All

Update: The Bagley Wildlife Museum is closed and not expected to reopen. The fate of the taxidermy collection is unclear. 

The Bagley Wildlife Museum is a jam-packed ark of a place, an extravagant monument to nature’s fertility. This collection long ago outgrew the front window of a shoe store and now occupies half of a ranch home on the edge of town. Most of the animals were bagged and mounted by Bagley shoemaker Hank Haug from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Everything in this space is Mr. Haug’s creation. There is a notable unity to the collection and painted displays, from the selection of items and their preparation to the construction of exhibits and wording of labels. The museum is an all-encompassing work of untrained genius and Hank Haug’s collection is a real compendium of nature’s wonders of the northern prairie.

Know Before You Go

Located in the front part of a home along Hwy 2 at the west edge of Bagley

hunting and taxidermy natural history museums lost wonders taxidermy museums
Community Contributors
M
Added by
MattB
Trevor
Edited by
Trevor
Published
March 16, 2010
Edit this listing
Make an Edit Add Photos
Nearby
Headwaters of the Mississippi River
21.68 miles
Old Headquarters Historic Monument
24.51 miles
Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox
25.10 miles
Want to see fewer ads? Become a Member.
Near This Place
The headwaters at Lake Itasca
Lake Itasca, Minnesota

Headwaters of the Mississippi River

At this Minnesota state park you can easily wade across the source of the mighty Mississippi.
This chimney was part of the main office of the the Nichols-Chisolm logging camp
Ponsford, Minnesota

Old Headquarters Historic Monument

A chimney and a plaque are all that remains of a logging camp that once cleared out a large swath of Minnesota's old-growth forest.
Bemidji, Minnesota

Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox

These crudely shaped folk giants may be the the second most photographed statues in the U.S.
The Fireplace of States now at the Bemidji Tourist Information Center.
Bemidji, Minnesota

Fireplace of States

This ambitious attraction was the brain child of a lake resort impresario, and built by the WPA.
Related Places
One of the museum's dioramas of animals staged in their natural habitats.
Birchington-on-Sea, England

Powell-Cotton Dioramas

An English explorer's vast natural history collection has the first realistic dioramas of animals staged in their natural habitats.
The Buckhorn Saloon and Museum.
San Antonio, Texas

Buckhorn Saloon and Museum

A 131-year-old wunderkammer of Texas history.
Mammal Room
Hanoi, Vietnam

Bao tang Dong vat (Hanoi Zoological Museum)

A French-Colonial era collection of taxidermy and wet specimens, secreted away in the National University of Hanoi.
The Taxidermy Room
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Zoological Museum

The Natural History Museum that time forgot.
In partnership with KAYAK

Plan Your Trip

From Around the Web