What A Wonderful World

These unconventional museums celebrate unique aspects of the Commonwealth. 

To the joy of internet surfers and summer roadtrippers alike, Virginia is liberally sprinkled with offbeat museums that offer a different perspective on the state. Whether you’re looking for history, hauntings, TV trivia, or tractors, there’s a venue to visit, either in person or online. The next time you have a few minutes to spare, check out these interesting and unusual museums.

Roanoke Pinball Museum 

There’s nothing quite like slapping the flippers and timing the shots to send a silver ball whizzing up the ramps, through the spinners, and into the targets of a pinball machine, bells ringing and lights flashing all the while. Pinball is beloved precisely because it’s more visceral than other electronic amusements, according to Nic Schell, the executive director of the Roanoke Pinball Museum, who says the game was derived from billiards. 

Guests are invited to touch the exhibits and play the games at the five-year-old museum, which is home to 65 machines made between 1932 and 2019. “It’s a good representation of a slice of pinball history spanning decades,” says Schell. “One of the favorites of guests is a game from 1932 that doesn’t have electricity. It’s a Depression-era game called Skill-Score. It’s one of the most popular games even though it’s simple and there are no lights or games. The other cool game is the 1993 Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball game. All the cast at the time lent their voices to the game. All of the cast have a call out or speech.”

The history and science of pinball are also part of the experience. “Sometimes, if people want to see what’s inside, we will open a pinball game and give a tour, like a technology demonstration,” says Schell. “Kids—well, everyone—are fascinated. There’s motors and gears. It’s a World War II-looking thing.” Schell notes that new exhibits are in the works, including a large, wall-mounted, playable, exploded-view pinball machine that will highlight game physics. RoanokePinball.org

The First Peanut Museum 

For a quick trip into the history of an iconic Virginia food, stop by The First Peanut Museum in Waverly, the historical heart of peanut farming and the area known as the World’s Largest Peanut Market. Historical exhibits in the tiny museum tell how the peanut migrated to America and became both our snack of choice and a key crop in Virginia, as well as illustrating the plant’s life cycle. 

The Peanut Museum is located on the grounds of the Miles B. Carpenter Folk Art Museum, which preserves the home and work of a local woodcarver. Carpenter began carving as a full-time retirement hobby in 1966, creating colorfully painted animals and human caricatures from found and carved wood. Over the next 20 years, his work was shown at the Museum of American Folk Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, among others. He won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and met President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The building became a museum after Carpenter’s death in 1985. MilesBCarpenterMuseum.com

The Fauquirer History Museum at the Old Jail 

Located in the old Fauquier County prison complex in Warrenton, the Fauquier History Museum offers a fascinating look at local history from an unusual perspective. Comprising two buildings literally used as prisons—the older of the two, built in 1808, was converted to the jailer’s house when the new jail was opened in 1823—the museum houses a mixture of exhibits, according to Teresa Reynolds, chair of the Fauquier Historical Society’s museum committee. Visitors can enjoy depictions of the county’s history over the decades, a “war room” detailing local involvement in various conflicts, a kitchen restored to early 1900s style, original jail cells for both general and maximum security prisoners, lectures, and walking tours. 

Plus, there are opportunities to interact with the original residents, so to speak; the buildings are known to be haunted. “Awhile back, some past board members were in the front room of the 1808 building … when a woman walked out of the kitchen and through a closed door,” says Reynolds. “Five of the seven people saw her. The other two felt the hair on their arms stand up.” In another instance, a longtime docent Reynolds describes as “a serious doubter” was alone in a room that happened to have a very large mirror. He looked up to see a woman standing beside him in the reflection—although there was no one in the room. Reynolds says a ghostly child roams the upstairs rooms, occasionally giggling and rearranging small items; her hair has been gently tugged when she ignores the antics. Volunteers and visitors have “so many stories,” including mysterious odors, sounds, and experiences; the site is “very active, to say the least,” she concludes. FauquierHistory.org

Tobacco Farm Life Museum of Virginia

Tobacco has played a central role in Virginia’s agricultural and commercial life for 400 years. The Tobacco Farm Life Museum in South Hill shows the process for cultivating and preparing the product, as well as ways tobacco was used and disseminated throughout society. The museum features commercial displays, tobacco-related pipes and other devices, and agricultural implements used for farming tobacco. “It’s dedicated to the small tobacco farmer from the early 1900s who utilized field animals to cultivate tobacco as a cash crop and lived off of that from growing season to growing season,” says curator Robert Craven. “We focus on the agricultural and manufacturing process.”

As a bonus, the building is also home to a unique display of antique medical instruments and paraphernalia. SouthHillVa.org

Gold Mining Camp Museum at Monroe Park 

Once upon a time, a rainbow in Virginia might have led you to an actual pot of gold. The Gold Mining Camp Museum in Goldvein is the only museum in the state dedicated to Virginia’s gold mining history. Visitors can explore a bunkhouse, mess hall, and assay office, as well as marvel at the seven-ton hornet balls that crushed ore to free the gold.

“Although there was not a mine on our site, within 10 miles of the site there were somewhere around 50 working gold mines in Fauquier, Stafford, Culpeper, Orange, and Spotsylvania counties,” says Todd Bonshire, Monroe Park manager and museum curator. “These mines would have been active intermittently between 1800 and 1940. The three museum buildings are recreations of some of the buildings at a gold mine from the 1930s.” Gold Mine Camp

Steamboat Era Museum 

From 1813 to 1937, before roads, railroads, and highways were built, steamboats were a primary mode of transportation for people and goods traveling around the Chesapeake Bay. The Steamboat Era Museum in Irvington takes you back to that world with models, artifacts, and photos. 

“We have the largest piece of pilot house, with the captain’s quarters, in existence. Visitors can go in and turn the wheel,” says Barbara Brecher, the museum’s executive director. “There are maritime museums, but there are no other museums that have the story of steamboats on the Chesapeake Bay. There are other steamboat museums, but the story of the Northern Neck is very unique.”

In addition to walking through the pilot house, visitors can learn the history and timeline of steamboats on the Chesapeake, examine a large diorama of how steamboats were built, and listen as steamboat passengers share oral histories of their memories. “Visitors learn that there were staterooms and dining rooms on steamboats. They also had slot machines. We have a diorama of the James Adamns Floating Theater that went from port to port. If the people weren’t on stage, they were managing the lighting,” says Brecher. “That’s maybe the quirkiest thing.” SteamboatEraMuseum.org

The Poe Museum 

Admirers of the famous author Edgar Allan Poe started the namesake museum in Richmond more than 100 years ago. Although the building itself is not related to the author, to enter its grounds is to go back to a time when the writer penned The Raven and other works. 

“The Poe Museum offers a unique experience to our guests by curating the world’s largest collection of Poe’s personal possessions and Poe memorabilia,” says executive director Aaron-Paula Thompson. “We also are located within Richmond’s oldest residential structure. By that nature, we are an institution of learning for literature fans, history buffs, cat lovers, and followers of Richmond’s most famous writer.”

Poe was born in Boston and died in Baltimore but considered Richmond his home. The museum’s exhibits describe his life and literary journey, as well as the toll that disease, death, and unrequited love exacted on the orphan. 

Find more Poe sites around Virginia at PoeMuseum.org.

Keystone Antique Truck & Tractor Museum

At the Keystone Antique Truck & Tractor Museum in Colonial Heights, visitors can roam a former paint factory to see a wide range of large vehicles: 185 tractors, 100 road trucks, and 30 cars and pickups. The museum was founded by Keith Jones, the CEO of Abilene Motor Express, to house his collection of antique tractors and vintage trucks—many of which he restored himself. 

“There is no other collection like this in the country,” says Dylan Simmons, museum assistant. “We have a diverse collection of cars, pickups, tractors, road trucks, and motorcycles. Something really unique in our collection is a Minneapolis Moline UDLX. It’s the first tractor that had a cab on it. It was designed so that a farmer could use it during the week and drive to town in it on the weekends. It’s the only one of its kind in the U.S.”

Check the museum's website for the date of its annual Keystone Blowout, featuring a live band, a magician, a children’s barrel train, and more. KeystoneTractorworks.com

Simpson Funeral Museum

From antique hearses to the history of embalming and modern caskets, the Simpson Funeral Museum pays tribute to the “honorable profession of funeral service.”

“This museum is quirky, and you can even add weird,” says owner Scott Simpson. “My family goes back nine generations in the historic town of Chatham. My father has been a licensed funeral director for 50 years, and we own a casket company in North Carolina. We’re purists, so to speak, with anything funeral. We believe in the dignity and the respect of it. We believe when there is a death, everyone should have family and friends pause and record a life lived and say goodbye.”

Simpson created the Funeral Museum to honor his family’s love of funeral services, to give back to his hometown of Chatham, and to have something unique. The collections of caskets and ephemera are displayed in a community undertaking parlor built in 1898. With its tin ceilings and hardwood floors, “it’s a beautiful space,” Simpson says. “We want people to learn cool facts about funeral science in America. We want to fill a big gap in funeral history. Many museums around may have an antique display with a coffin in the corner. But we give a full history.” As an example, he notes that the Civil War was a big turning point for funeral science; embalming was developed to preserve troops’ bodies so the army could send them home to be buried near their families. 

Among the displays, says Simpson, are “antiques from 1848. We also have a horse-drawn carriage hearse from 1878 in pristine condition and a 1941 Packard Hearse in the building. We have lots of implements and items that are related to all things funeral.” Facebook: @SimpsonFuneralMuseum

Walton’s Mountain Museum

The folksy 1970s television show The Waltons is memorialized at the Walton’s Mountain Museum in Schuyler. The show was based on a book by Earl Hamner Jr., who grew up in Schuyler during the town’s height of prosperity, nearly 100 years ago, and wrote about his own family and experiences. Housed in a former school building, the museum lets visitors experience portions of the warm and wholesome family home through authentically furnished exhibits reminiscent of rooms from the show. In addition, “Ike Godsey’s store” depicts a country general store and post office in the spirit of those on The Waltons, and also offers souvenirs. Although the museum does not have original sets from the show, it does exhibit a number of props and succeeds in its mission to give guests a sense of being with the Waltons.  

Visit the website for info on the Waltons Mountain Mother’s Day/Father’s Day Celebration. Walton-Mountain.org

The Lucy Burns Museum at Workhouse Arts Center 

A former agricultural work camp, the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton has repurposed the sad, often violent, and crowded Lorton Prison into an uplifting cultural center, which hosts art exhibitions, performances, classes, and artists’ studios. The newly opened Lucy Burns Museum at the WAC tells the stories of both the prison and some of the people held there.

“It’s certainly unique,” says museum director Laura McKie. “There is nothing quite like it anywhere else. It’s unusual in that it combines two stories together in one museum. One is the Lorton correctional unit. The other is a six-month story of the suffra-gists who were imprisoned in 1917 [for picketing the White House over women’s right to vote].”

Named for a leader of the cause, the Lucy Burns Museum shares the experiences of female voting activists at the dawn of the 20th century. Exhibits include the jail log where the suffragists’ names were written when they were charged, images of the 72 women who were jailed, and larger-than-life statues of movement leaders Burns, Alice Paul, and Dora Lewis. “The message we are trying to impart is that women were imprisoned here, and those on the hunger strikes did it for the right to vote, so it is our responsibility to vote,” says McKie. “We try to get people to leave with respect for the courage for the women who were willing to go to prison for the right to vote.”

The museum also tells the story of Lorton Prison with exhibits of objects such as a 17-foot crucifix created by prisoners for a chapel and modeled after a death row inmate, confiscated shivs and weapons, and films showing life in the prison, including performances by Frank Sinatra. Visitors can enter one of the 38 remaining cells to experience the restrictions placed on the prisoners. WorkhouseArts.org 

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