Collections in the United States

Discover 567 unusual collections in the United States.

Smokey's Fan Mail, 1979.

Beltsville, Maryland

Smokey Bear Archive

The Forest Service's surprisingly sophisticated collection of wildfire prevention art features America's most beloved bear.

The Poison Dart frogs show.

Portland, Oregon

Morrison Street Minigallery

A tiny art gallery in Sunnyside helps keep Portland weird.

Permanently Closed

There's sustainably sourced taxidermy in spades.

Portland, Oregon

Redux Boutique and Gallery

This Portland shop is brimming with natural wonders, local art, and handmade goods fashioned from recycled materials.

Teakettle Junction.

Inyo County, California

Teakettle Junction

Travelers leave tea kettles in a remote part of Death Valley as part of a mysterious, decades-old tradition.

The paintings are stored on tightly packed vertical wire partitions to save space.

Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Army Museum Support Center

The U.S. Army's giant warehouse of war art includes Hitler’s watercolors and Norman Rockwell oil paintings.

Tucson Mineral and Gem World.

Tucson, Arizona

Tucson Mineral and Gem World

A natural history wunderkammer in the middle of the desert.

Akin Free Library.

Pawling, New York

Akin Free Library

The attic and basement house two museums stuffed with oddities like swallowed spoon handles and a shrunken head.

Joplin, Missouri

National Cookie Cutter Historical Museum

A small museum dedicated to the whimsical tool that turns sugar cookies into works of art.

National Wildlife Property Repository.

Commerce City, Colorado

National Wildlife Property Repository

Over 1.3 million confiscated wildlife products fill this macabre menagerie of illegal animal specimens.

Paul Broste Rock Museum

Parshall, North Dakota

Paul Broste Rock Museum

One North Dakota man's vast collection of rare rocks, polished orbs, and geological wonders.

The movable sculptures of the Museum of Kinetic Art

Tucson, Arizona

Mat Bevel's Museum of Kinetic Art & Surrealistic Pop Science Theater

A Tucson museum and performance space full of found-object movable sculptures.

The colorful, glowing rocks of Sterling Hill

Ogdensburg, New Jersey

Fluorescent Rocks of Sterling Hill Mine

Hundreds of glow-in-the-dark objects light up a museum in a historic zinc mine.

School Bus Graveyard.

The School Bus Graveyard

Where school buses go to die and be reborn as whimsical works of art.

Merman.

Fenwick Island, Delaware

Discoversea Shipwreck Museum

A desiccated merman and a walrus penis bone are among the oddities in this eclectic collection of shipwreck treasures.

Aerial view of Antique Fan Museum

Zionsville, Indiana

Antique Fan Museum

A collection of over 2000 air-moving devices of all kinds displayed in the Fanimation headquarters.

Cameron, West Virginia

Archive of the Afterlife

The museum calls itself the "National Museum of the Paranormal" and is full of eerie oddities.