Rainy day museums in Utah
Indoors, roomy, and worth the drive when the weather has other plans.
79 museums on this list, checked against their own websites in October 2026.
Natural History Museum of Utah
Twelve permanent exhibitions over four levels, from the Past Worlds dinosaur hall to gems and minerals, the Great Salt Lake and Utah's First Peoples.
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
The University of Utah's art museum, with its permanent collection galleries on campus and a run of changing shows.
Hill Aerospace Museum
Free, with more than 70 historic aircraft and aerospace vehicles, an SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 stealth fighter among them. No base pass needed.
By region
Salt Lake County 13
- Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk ArtSalt Lake City Art FreeThe state's folk art collection lives in an old farmhouse in the middle of Liberty Park, with more than 450 pieces made by Utah's many communities. Galleries cover Native American ancestral and contemporary work, ceramics and occupational crafts, and the current show, Once Upon a Tree, looks at wood and paper and runs through January 9, 2027. It pairs well with a park walk.
- Church History MuseumSalt Lake City History FreeThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints runs this free museum on West Temple, telling the faith's history through art and artifacts. The main floor exhibit, The Heavens Are Opened, covers early Church history with film, documents and artifacts, and the second floor holds a children's exhibit and temporary exhibits. Every three years the museum hosts and exhibits a theme-based art competition for Latter-day Saint artists from around the world.
- Clark PlanetariumSalt Lake City Science FreeSalt Lake County's planetarium at The Gateway has more than 10,000 square feet of hands-on space exhibits you can wander for free. The shows cost extra: dome films in the Hansen Dome Theatre, big-screen films in the Northrop Grumman IMAX Theatre, and laser shows.
- Discovery Gateway Children's MuseumSalt Lake City KidsA 60,000 square foot children's museum inside The Gateway with more than 20 hands-on exhibits. Kids can climb into a real Life Flight helicopter, take the wheel of a semi-truck cab, dig for fossils, run a child-sized city and watch the Stillson River Railroad.
- Land Cruiser Heritage MuseumSalt Lake City Trains and carsA museum devoted to one truck, the Toyota Land Cruiser, laid out by generation from the 55 and 60 series through the 70s, 100s and 200s, plus Prados, related 'cousin' vehicles and engine displays. Specific pieces include a 1979 FJ56 fire truck and a 1988 FJ62/HZJ79 hybrid. No appointment needed.
- Museum of UtahSalt Lake City History FreeUtah's first state history museum opened on the Capitol complex, with four permanent galleries (Becoming, Connecting, Building and Inspiring Utah) that tell the state's story through objects and art. The Mormon Meteor III land speed car is on display, along with the Alice Merrill Horne Collection of more than 2,000 artworks. Admission is free, and the temporary show The Past is Personal runs through spring 2027.
- Natural History Museum of UtahSalt Lake City ScienceThe state's natural history museum, housed in the Rio Tinto Center, with twelve permanent exhibitions over four levels. Past Worlds holds the dinosaurs, a Ceratosaurus fossil is on display, and other halls cover gems and minerals, the Great Salt Lake and Utah's First Peoples.
- Pioneer Memorial MuseumSalt Lake City Pioneer FreeThe Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum just west of the Capitol packs four floors and a carriage house with the belongings of Utah's early settlers, from homemade tools and painted pine furniture to pianos and crystal hauled across the plains. The carriage house holds full-size vehicles, including a Conestoga wagon, a stagecoach and a 1902 fire engine. Admission is free, so it works as an easy weekday stop when you are near Capitol Hill.
- Utah Museum of Fine ArtsSalt Lake City ArtThe University of Utah's art museum, in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building on campus. Current shows include For the Future, a look at 25 years of the museum's collecting, and Onishi Yasuaki's Stone on Boundary, with the salt 18 series bringing Amor Munoz in late October.
- Utah Sports Hall of Fame MuseumSalt Lake City History FreeA small free museum on the mall level at City Creek, north of Nordstrom, that tells the stories of Utah Sports Hall of Fame inductees. It also covers the high school and college coaches, game officials and distinguished service honorees the foundation recognizes. It opened in 2019, and there is an online virtual tour.
- Utah State CapitolSalt Lake City HistoryThe capitol building carries a changing set of exhibits across its floors. Through the end of 2026 that includes a bicentennial quilt display, an Osmond family exhibit and a show on the Revolution's writing, plus standing displays on the state flag, the Capitol Lions and Utah's territorial governors. Guided tours on weekdays cover the building's history and architecture, Utah history and how government works, and need a reservation.
- The Gale MuseumSouth Jordan History FreeSouth Jordan's city museum opened in June 2006 in the building that used to be the South Jordan branch library, and many exhibits are built for small kids. They can practice on slates in an 1892 schoolhouse, gather eggs and hang laundry at the Beckstead farmhouse, and check what a Model T fill-up cost at a vintage service station. Older visitors get the Bingham Canyon copper mining story and From Gale to South Jordan, which covers the city's first 100 years; admission is free.
- West Valley Cultural Celebration CenterWest Valley City Art FreeThe Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City runs free galleries, with the Pilar Pobil Celebration Gallery as its main space. The Bridge, Plaza and Crescent galleries show local artists, traveling exhibits and educational displays, and most of the work there is for sale. Through October 14 it has the Utah Women Artists Exhibition 2026 and Plein Air Riverfest, paintings made at the 2026 Get to the River Festival.
Davis, Weber and Morgan 13
- Bountiful Davis Art CenterBountiful Art FreeA community art center on Bountiful's Main Street with rotating shows in its Main, Front and Annex galleries, free to visit. It hosts juried exhibitions such as the Statewide Emerging Artists' Annual and runs paid classes in pottery, watercolor and figure drawing.
- Hill Aerospace MuseumHill Air Force Base Military FreeMore than 70 historic aircraft and aerospace vehicles at a museum just off base by the North/Roy Gate, so no base pass is needed. The collection includes a B-17, an SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 stealth fighter, and there are flight simulators and scavenger hunts. The museum suggests planning one to two hours.
- Kaysville Fruit Heights Museum of History & ArtKaysville HistoryA small community museum in the north foyer of Kaysville's city building that rotates local history and art shows instead of keeping permanent displays. Recent shows have covered the indigenous presence in early Davis County and a set of 28 paintings first commissioned for the 1976 national bicentennial. It also keeps oral histories, historic markers and a walking tour of town, so a quick stop can turn into an afternoon.
- Heritage Museum of LaytonLayton History FreeLayton's city museum covers the history, people and culture of Layton and nearby towns, from Native American heritage and pioneer settlement to neighborhoods and everyday life, through artifacts and historic photographs. The collection includes the Dell Adams gun collection, an old prescription cabinet and a train exhibit, and the Joseph Hill Cabin can be toured on request. Kids get an exploration corner and a monthly scavenger hunt, and entry is free.
- Browning-Kimball Classic Car Museum (Union Station)Ogden HistoryOne of four museums inside Ogden's Union Station, this one holds early automobiles running from a 1901 single-cylinder Oldsmobile to a 1930 sixteen-cylinder Cadillac. Matt and Barbara Browning began collecting in 1971 with a 1930 Packard, dedicated the museum here in 1981, and nine of their cars were donated to Ogden City. One ticket covers the railroad, firearms, car and cowboy museums in the building.
- John M. Browning Firearms Museum (Union Station)Ogden HistoryA museum inside Ogden's Union Station about inventor John M. Browning, with original prototypes he designed in Ogden alongside models made by Winchester, Remington and Colt. It also covers the Browning Automatic Rifle and the work of his father, son and grandson, four generations of Browning inventors, plus an exhibit of miniature guns showing how firearms developed. One ticket covers this and the railroad, classic car and cowboy and western heritage museums in the same building.
- Mary Elizabeth Dee Shaw GalleryOgden Art FreeWeber State University's art gallery sits inside the Ethel Wattis Kimball Visual Arts Center on the Ogden campus and runs a rotating lineup of exhibitions across many media. It closes in summer and over university breaks, so plan around the school calendar.
- Museums at Union StationOgden Trains and carsOgden's historic train depot holds four museums under one ticket: the Utah State Railroad Museum, the John M. Browning Firearms Museum, the Browning-Kimball Classic Car Museum and the Utah State Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. It also has the Wattis-Dumke Model Railroad and two galleries, the Gallery at the Station and the Myra Powell Gallery, that put up new exhibits each month.
- Ott PlanetariumOgden Science FreeWeber State's planetarium is a thirty foot, sixty seat full-dome theater with a list of more than twenty shows, from dark matter to a photon's trip from a distant star to someone's retina. The public open hours are free. The university's public observatory has nine pier-mounted telescopes and holds free star parties about once a month.
- Treehouse Children's MuseumOgden KidsA nonprofit children's museum in downtown Ogden built around stories, imaginative play, literacy and the arts. Its galleries include a train crossing with scaled locomotives, a small-town main street with shops and a fire station, and a 30-foot climbing tree.
- Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (Union Station)Ogden HistoryOne of the museums at Ogden's Union Station, this one honors the ranchers, artists, entertainers, musicians and writers behind Utah's western heritage, with a Hall of Fame that adds honorees each year. One Union Station ticket also covers the railroad, firearms and classic car museums.
- Utah State Railroad Museum (Union Station)Ogden Trains and carsHoused at Ogden's Union Station, with Union Pacific Northern 833 and the X-26 turbine engine, plus a restored Red Cross hospital car, a railroad post office car and the 2002 Olympic Winter Games cauldron car. Indoors, the Wattis-Dumke model railroad follows the transcontinental line past spots like the Lucin Trestle and Weber Canyon. One ticket also covers the Browning firearms, classic car and cowboy and western heritage museums in the same building.
- Antelope Island State Park Visitor and Learning CenterSyracuse (Antelope Island) ScienceCheck before you go
Utah County 16
- The Crandall Printing MuseumAlpine HistoryA hands-on printing museum in Alpine, open by appointment for tours of about an hour. Visitors pick a Gutenberg tour (type casting and the 42-line Bible), a Ben Franklin tour that ends with a printed copy of the Declaration of Independence to keep, or a Book of Mormon tour on Acorn press printing and book binding. The collection runs from a 1380 Book of Hours page to a 1913 Linotype.
- Butterfly BiosphereLehi ScienceThanksgiving Point's insect attraction. In the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Butterfly Conservatory, more than a thousand live butterflies from around the world fly freely, and the Discovery Zone holds hundreds of live insects plus a permanent colony of 120,000 leafcutter ants.
- Hutchings Museum InstituteLehi ScienceA Lehi museum that has been housed in the city's historic Memorial Building since the mid-1990s and looks after thousands of artifacts. Its programs and outreach cover live animals, geology, fossils, western settlement and Native American culture, and this October it runs evening Lamp Light Tours (Oct 10) and Ghost Tours (Oct 24). The Lehi Free Press reported in March 2026 that its city funding was under debate, so check the site before a long drive.
- Museum of Ancient LifeLehi DinosaursNow called the Mountain America Museum of Ancient Life, this is Thanksgiving Point's dinosaur hall, with 60 complete mounted skeletons and more than 50 hands-on exhibits. The newer Need for Speed exhibit sets Jurassic predators like Ceratosaurus and Tanycolagreus side by side, and in the lab you can watch paleontologists and volunteers dig out a 150-million-year-old Barosaurus. Tickets are timed, so buying ahead is the move.
- Museum of Natural CuriosityLehi KidsA hands-on children's museum at Thanksgiving Point with more than 400 exhibits spread across areas like the Rainforest, Kidopolis, Water Works and the Discovery Garden, plus a rotating Innovation Gallery. Newer additions are a Thomas and Friends train exhibit and Teamwork in the Wee Jungle, a play area for kids 3 and under. Tickets are sold per person, and members get in free.
- Thanksgiving PointLehi OtherA nonprofit in Lehi that runs seven attractions over two campuses, including the Mountain America Museum of Ancient Life, the Museum of Natural Curiosity, the Butterfly Biosphere, Ashton Gardens and Curiosity Farms. The dinosaur museum has 60 complete dinosaur skeletons and more than 50 hands-on exhibits, and visitors can watch paleontologists and volunteers uncover a 150 million year old Barosaurus. Admission is ticketed, and dinosaur museum tickets are timed, so buy ahead.
- Orem Heritage Museum at SCERAOrem History FreeA free museum of Orem history in the historic building just south of the SCERA Center, with about 2,000 artifacts. Exhibits run from a coal stove, butter churn and victrola to a blacksmith shop, agricultural displays, military displays from World War I through Korea, and Geneva Steel and SCERA memorabilia, and there is a working model railroad diorama of 1940s Orem.
- UVU Museum of ArtOrem Art FreeUtah Valley University's art museum, now in the Lakemount building on 1800 South in Orem, with free admission and free parking in the lot above the building. Through November 21, 2026 it shows the Faculty Art Exhibition, with work by 44 UVU art and design faculty, and through January 9, 2027 a student-curated show of abstract work from the permanent collection.
- BYU Bean Life Science MuseumProvo History FreeBYU's Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum covers living things from bacteria to whales, with galleries on evolution, endangered species, freshwater and ocean life, African wildlife and the world's waterfowl and pheasants. Admission is free.
- BYU Education in Zion GalleryProvo History FreeA permanent exhibition in the gallery of BYU's Joseph F. Smith Building, open since 2008, about how Latter-day Saints have joined religious and secular learning. The south side follows the study, experience and revelation cycle through the church's education history; the north side is built on the four aims of a BYU education. Admission is free and guided tours run on weekdays.
- BYU Museum of ArtProvo Art FreeIts shows mix American art and sacred art from the collection with visiting exhibitions; this fall that includes Gordon Parks photographs and a show on Lorenzo Ghiberti's Baptistery Doors. There is also a sculpture garden.
- BYU Museum of PaleontologyProvo Dinosaurs FreeBYU's fossil museum says it holds one of the largest dinosaur collections in the world, and it shares a front parking lot with LaVell Edwards Stadium. Exhibits include Kosmoceratops, Supersaurus and Camarasaurus vertebrae, the pterosaur Caelestiventus hanseni from the Saints and Sinners Quarry, and displays on collecting fossils and lab tools.
- BYU Museum of Peoples and CulturesProvo Ancient peoplesBYU's anthropology museum holds more than a million artifacts from around the world and puts a rotating handful of them on display. A permanent gallery traces who has lived in Utah Valley, from Archaic and Fremont peoples to the Ute and later settlers. Current shows cover basketry around the world and the kava bowls of Pacific Island communities.
- Museum of Mormon History of the AmericasProvo History FreeA private Provo museum, now called the Museum of Mormon Mexican History, on the history of the Latter-day Saint church in Mexico; it is not affiliated with the church. Exhibits cover the 1880s colonies in northern Mexico and the flight to El Paso during the Revolution, the first Spanish translations of the Book of Mormon, and Mexican newspaper coverage of the church. Entry is free with donations welcome, and texts are in English and Spanish.
- Santaquin Chieftain MuseumSantaquin History FreeSantaquin's free town museum fills a former elementary school built in 1903, which taught local kids until the early 1980s and was dedicated as a museum in 1990. Fifteen rooms each cover a piece of town life, including a blacksmith shop, mine room, post office, country store and a miniature town. Pick up the free Historical Sites booklet for a walking tour of the town afterward.
- Springville Museum of ArtSpringville Art FreeA free art museum whose collection began in 1903, when artists Cyrus Dallin and John Hafen donated Paul Revere and Mountain Stream. It now holds more than 2,700 works, over 2,000 of them Utah art from pioneer times to today, plus what it calls the largest public collection of twentieth-century Russian and Soviet art in the western United States. The building was dedicated in 1937, and the Sam and Diane Stewart Sculpture Garden was dedicated in 2009.
Park City and Heber 6
- Commemorative Air Force Utah Wing MuseumHeber City MilitaryA World War II aviation museum at Russ McDonald Field in Heber, run by the all-volunteer Utah Wing of the Commemorative Air Force, which formed in the mid-1980s around a Boeing N2S Stearman. It shows Allied uniforms, plus armament, photographs, weapons and equipment from both Allied and Axis countries.
- Wasatch County Daughters of Utah Pioneers MuseumHeber City Pioneer FreeIt covers Wasatch County's early settlers and communities from 1830 to 1900. It holds the tool chest and tools of Alexander Fortie, architect and a builder of the Wasatch Stake Tabernacle, and a Native American display of original items and facsimiles. Kids get Seek and Find sheets to work through the cases.
- Alf Engen Ski MuseumPark City History FreeA free ski museum in the Joe Quinney Winter Sports Center at Utah Olympic Park that covers how the Intermountain region became a winter sports hub. The same complex holds the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame, the PSIA Intermountain Division Hall of Fame and the Eccles 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Museum.
- Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games MuseumPark City History FreeThe 2002 Winter Games museum, in the building that served as the media center during those Olympics. It covers every sport from luge and skeleton to curling, the Paralympics, the torch relay and the volunteers, and it has started collecting for the 2034 Games. Entry is free and it shares the building with the Alf Engen Ski Museum.
- Kimball Art CenterPark City Art FreePark City's nonprofit art center, with free rotating gallery exhibitions plus classes, camps and artist talks. The current show, Between the Lines, runs through January 3, 2027, and receptions and panel discussions go along with each exhibition.
- Park City MuseumPark City HistoryThe town history museum on Main Street, covering Park City's silver mining years through its ski town era. You start by climbing aboard a passenger train car for an intro film, then work down through the floors to the old jail, with a family detective activity for kids. The Tozer Gallery runs changing shows, currently Park City Loves a Parade.
Cache and Box Elder 6
- Brigham City Museum of Art & HistoryBrigham City Art FreeBrigham City's own museum, started in 1970, with a collection of more than 12,000 items covering art, historical artifacts, ephemera, natural history specimens and oral histories. A permanent exhibition covers the town's history, and five to six temporary history and fine art shows rotate through each year; the Development photography competition exhibition runs October 3 to December 4, 2026. Admission is free.
- World of Puppetry MuseumBrigham City Art FreeA puppet museum inside the Northern Utah Center for the Arts, which rebranded from the Fine Arts Center. Opened in 2000, it holds over 150 puppets from 16 countries, from Indonesian shadow and rod puppets and Burmese and Indian marionettes to a 1940-50 Howdy Doody set, Kermit and Lamb Chop. Kids can pull marionette strings, perform at a shadow stage and make a puppet craft.
- Hyrum City MuseumHyrum HistoryA city-run museum in Hyrum with fifteen permanent interpretive exhibits that run from Native Utah to the present day. It also shows Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibitions, temporary and community exhibits, and keeps oral histories and an archive with a searchable catalog.
- Cache County DUP MuseumLogan Pioneer FreeThe Cache Pioneer Museum in downtown Logan collects and exhibits objects, pictures and histories of Cache Valley's early settlers. Behind the display cases it holds about 1,600 digitized pioneer histories, 300 digitized pioneer portraits and a scrapbook collection of clippings and obituaries from roughly 1930 to 1960, which makes it useful for anyone researching a Cache Valley family.
- Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (USU)Logan Art FreeUtah State University's art museum holds over 5,000 works, weighted toward 20th and 21st century American art and art of the American West. Its ceramics collection, which started with more than 400 vessels Nora Eccles Harrison gave along with the building, now tops 1,200 pieces.
- USU Museum of AnthropologyLogan History FreeA small anthropology museum in Room 252 of Old Main on Utah State University's Logan campus. USU students conceived and built every exhibit, which look at how human lives change, how people share knowledge and how they make art.
Central Utah 5
- Topaz MuseumDelta HistoryTells the story of Topaz, the World War II camp 16 miles northwest of Delta where Japanese Americans were held from September 1942 to October 1945. The exhibit starts with the racist laws aimed at early Japanese immigrants and follows the mass incarceration and its aftermath, using hundreds of artifacts, photographs and oral histories plus about 150 original artworks. The museum also lays out an 18-stop driving or biking tour.
- Snow College Art GalleryEphraim History FreeSnow College's gallery sits inside the Humanities Building on the Ephraim campus and keeps the college's permanent collection, including the Lund-Wassmer Collection. Each year it shows an Artists in Residence/Works in Progress show and a juried student exhibition, along with a bi-annual faculty show and national solo and group shows.
- Snow College PlanetariumEphraim Science FreeA fulldome planetarium in room 324 of Snow College's Graham Science Center in Ephraim. Shows are free, but tickets must be reserved through Eventbrite; Science Night shows need no reservation.
- John Wesley Powell River History MuseumGreen River HistoryA Green River museum about river running on the Colorado Plateau, with a Boat Room on how riverboats in the region evolved and a River Runners Hall of Fame that has inducted more than 30 people and groups since 1990. The lower level holds fossil and dinosaur specimens, and other displays cover Green River melons, Range Creek archaeology and southeastern Utah geology. Its current exhibition, Kayak Revolution, opened October 3, 2026 and follows the early kayakers on the plateau's rivers.
- Museum of the San RafaelCastle Dale ScienceCheck before you go
Southern Utah 10
- Garth and Jerri Frehner Museum of Natural HistoryCedar City Science FreeA free natural history museum on the first floor of Southern Utah University's Science Addition Building, with collections on campus since as early as 1915. It shows large scale taxidermy, rocks and minerals, fossils, insects, shells and herbarium specimens. Its oddest piece is the Dancing Calves, born just north of Cedar City.
- Southern Utah Museum of ArtCedar City Art FreeSouthern Utah University's art museum, in a Brooks + Scarpa building designed after the region's slot canyons. The collection leans on Western landscape painters like Maynard Dixon, Edith Hamlin and Jimmie F. Jones, and has a deep print collection with works by Chagall, Whistler and Kathe Kollwitz. Entry is free, so it's an easy stop on a drive to the parks.
- Kanab MuseumKanab History FreeKanab's town museum, in the Deanna P. Glover Building, follows local history from the Ancestral Puebloans through the early settlers to the town's film-making years. It holds thousands of artifacts and archives, and the permanent exhibits are free.
- Moqui CaveKanab ScienceA sandstone cave on Highway 89 about 5.5 miles north of Kanab, run as a museum, where the temperature stays under 65 degrees even in summer. It shows more than 180 dinosaur tracks, most found within 10 to 15 miles, Native American artifacts including about 1,000 arrowheads, and a large fluorescent mineral display 200 feet inside the cave.
- McQuarrie Memorial Pioneer MuseumSt. George Pioneer FreeThe Daughters of Utah Pioneers run this downtown St. George museum, which is packed with objects and stories from Washington County's early settlers, among them a leather sidesaddle that belonged to Mary Ann Woodward. Volunteers give guided tours if you ask, and on the third weekend of the month local historians talk about topics like the Old Spanish Trail. It is free and easy to fit around a day in town.
- Rosenbruch Wildlife MuseumSt. George ScienceMore than 300 taxidermy animals from around the world are staged in natural habitat scenes at this museum attached to the Dixie Convention Center. Kids get an interactive children's gallery, and there is a separate insect room. An audio tour is listed as coming soon.
- St. George Children's MuseumSt. George KidsA downtown St. George children's museum with 15 hands-on exhibit spaces over two floors, most of them built for pretend play. Upstairs kids can run a grocery store, an auto garage, a vet clinic, an airport and a radio station; downstairs there is a submarine, a dinosaur room, a castle, and art, music and science rooms.
- St. George Dinosaur Discovery SiteSt. George DinosaursBuilt over the actual rock surface where dinosaurs walked about 200 million years ago, with an elevated boardwalk that puts you right above the original tracks. Alongside the Grallator and Eubrontes footprints are fossil fish, plant impressions, ripple marks and even raindrop impressions from an Early Jurassic lake. You can watch paleontologists work in the fossil prep lab, and kids get an outdoor dino park with a sandbox.
- St. George Museum of ArtSt. George Art FreeThe city's art museum collects art and artifacts from Utah and the West and rotates shows from its permanent collection alongside current artists. Recent exhibitions include Ben Steele's 45th State of Mind, which runs art history and pop culture through a Utah lens, and Aziza Abdieva's Fear Alchemy, built from Utah landscapes. Tours can be requested ahead.
- Washington City MuseumWashington History FreeThe Washington City Museum is in the town's old two-story sandstone schoolhouse, which the city dates to 1877, and volunteers from the Washington City Historical Society staff it. Its displays and antiques cover the town's 1857 settlement for the Cotton Mission and the Cotton Factory. A monument plaza outside has statues and plaques of early settlers.
Eastern Utah 10
- Edge of the Cedars State Park MuseumBlanding HistoryA state park museum beside Edge of the Cedars Pueblo, a village lived in by ancestors of today's Pueblo peoples from AD 825 to 1225. It shows one of the largest collections of Ancestral Pueblo pottery on exhibit in the Four Corners and covers both ancient and present-day American Indian cultures of the region. Outside, a paved trail circles the ruin past native plants and sculptures, and a ladder leads down into a 1,000-year-old kiva.
- The Dinosaur MuseumBlanding DinosaursA nonprofit dinosaur museum in Blanding with exhibits on feathered dinosaurs, dinosaurs from around the world, and eggs and babies. One room covers dinosaurs in the movies, from The Lost World and King Kong to Godzilla, and there is a sculpture gallery. The site also carries a memorial page for paleontologist Stephen A. Czerkas.
- Moab Arts CenterMoab Art FreeMoab Arts is a City of Moab department with a free Foyer Gallery of rotating shows. From October 3 to November 15 it hangs the Plein Air Artists Colorado exhibition, over 100 works by more than 60 artists, with a closing reception at the November 6 ArtWalk. The building also runs classes for kids and adults, an artist residency, the Red Rock Arts Festival and a Holiday Craft Fair.
- Frontier MuseumMonticello History FreeA free museum on Monticello's Main Street, opened in 1998 and listed on the city's welcome center site. It holds local pioneer items, vintage clothing and an old telephone operator's switchboard.
- Goulding's Monument Valley MuseumMonument Valley HistoryThe trading post museum at Goulding's resort outside Monument Valley covers the area's early trading days and its part in Western film history. The bull pen shows the kinds of goods once traded here, the Ware Room holds historic photographs and handmade pottery, and there are rooms for Western movies, a historic dining room and a kitchen.
- Bryner Pioneer MuseumPrice Pioneer FreeA pioneer history museum in Price, run only by volunteers and paid for by donations. Its site does not list individual exhibits, but it has put up the flagpole that once stood at the Price Post Office, salvaged, repaired and installed at the museum. Entry is free, and volunteers will open it for tours outside regular hours if you call.
- USU Eastern Prehistoric MuseumPrice DinosaursUtah State University Eastern runs this Price museum on the rocks, fossils and prehistoric people of eastern Utah. Visitors can watch work in the Fossil Prep Lab and see an exhibit on eastern Utah rock art, and the current special exhibit looks back at 65 years of the museum's own handmade displays.
- Museum of Uintah CountyVernal History FreeVernal's county museum covers the Uintah Basin from its First Peoples through pioneer settlement, ranching and mining. A section on the Outlaw Trail tells the stories of local figures such as Matt Warner, Josie Bassett and the Newton Brothers, and the art gallery rotates its exhibits.
- Utah Field House of Natural History State Park MuseumVernal ScienceA 90-foot Diplodocus skeleton greets visitors in the rotunda of this state park museum in Vernal. The Jurassic Gallery shows a Stegosaurus and an Allosaurus over a Haplocanthosaurus, and the Eocene Gallery has a wall of leaf fossils and a diorama of life on the shores of Lake Uinta. In the Fossil Lab you can pick up a bone and chisel, and a rock wall lets visitors try to spot fossils among the pebbles.
- Western Mining and Railroad Museum (Helper Museum)Helper MiningCheck before you go
The museums keep their own hours. We keep a weekly list.
Three free Thursday emails, each about its own corner of Utah.
- The Bench PressSugar House, Millcreek, Holladay and the east bench.Subscribe, free
- The Happy CamperLehi, American Fork, Highland, Alpine, Cedar Hills, Pleasant Grove and Lindon.Subscribe, free
- The Group ProjectProvo and Orem.Subscribe, free
Photos, left to right and top to bottom: Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; Xboxtravis7992, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
