Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee (must see)

The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) is one of the city’s most enduring cultural treasures. Officially chartered in 1882 and opened to the public two years later, the museum draws nearly a million visitors annually and offers free admission on Mondays for Milwaukee County residents-as well as to county jurors at any time.

Spanning three vibrant floors of exhibits, MPM also holds the distinction of housing Wisconsin’s first IMAX Theater. Among its most iconic installations is the Streets of Old Milwaukee, a nostalgic walk through late-19th-century urban life that opened in 1965 and has since welcomed millions of guests.

Though formally established in the 1880s, the museum’s story stretches back to 1851, when Peter Engelmann of the German-English Academy encouraged students to collect natural specimens on field trips-seeds that would grow into a full-fledged institution. The current museum building, located just one block north of the original site, was constructed between 1960 and 1962 and fully transitioned by 1966.

Today, MPM houses a staggering collection of over 4 million objects, including highlights like a 14,500-year-old woolly mammoth skeleton (on display as a fiberglass replica due to the fragility of the original bones) and a digital archive of 10,000+ bird eggs from around the world, with a special emphasis on Wisconsin species.

Permanent exhibits range from prehistoric dioramas to immersive explorations of global cultures and ecosystems. The museum also makes waves with major traveling shows, such as the Mummies of the World exhibition in 2010, which featured over 150 human remains and broke attendance records.

Operating as a non-profit, the Milwaukee Public Museum continues to balance tradition with transformation-celebrating the past while igniting curiosity for the future.