The Kenosha Public Museum is a natural sciences and fine and decorative arts museum with over 80,000 collections, including 1,200 works in fine arts. Exhibit programming includes mammoths, world cultures, Native Americans, zoology, geology, fossils, and fine and decorative arts.
Permanent exhibits include:
- The Wisconsin Story, a multi-disciplinary adventure in ecosystem development, evolution of plants and animals, the lives of Native Americans, and even changes in climate as they’ve happened over southeastern Wisconsin over thousands of years. The Schaefer mammoth, actually excavated by the Museum documents the earliest interaction of mammoth and man east of the Mississippi River. The replica is set in a special floor display exactly as found on the Schaefer farm in Paris, Wisconsin, a township along U.S. 45 in Kenosha County. This site is one of the oldest sites of human habitation in all of the Americas. The Hebior mammoth was also excavated in Kenosha County; it’s the largest, most complete mammoth excavated in North America.
- The Decorative and Fine Arts Gallery includes works by renowned artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Salvador Dali as well as regional artists who have achieved significant recognition such as Lorado Taft, Ruth Miles, and William Bloom. The decorative arts are well represented with Chinese ivory carvings, an ancient Chinese bronze goddess, and Wisconsin salt glazed pottery. Works change frequently.
There are many other rotating and virtual exhibits; you could easily spend the majority of a day here!
The Kenosha Public Museum is located on the east end of downtown Kenosha in the city’s HarborPark District within blocks of Lake Michigan. Highways 32, 50, and 158 all bring you to downtown Kenosha, which is about seven miles east of I-41/94.
Hours:
Monday – Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday Noon – 5pm
Address:
5500 First Avenue
Kenosha, WI
(262) 653-4140
Website
