Maine Museums

With more than 300 museums, libraries, and historical societies, Maine is considered as a museum-diamond mine, rich in cultural organizations and little known historical facts, which also have more surviving forts and lighthouses than any other state in America.

Starting from any destination, it is more likely to find an interesting museum to visit in Maine. For example, in the southern coast, the Alfred Village Museum is an old fire station converted to a museum, housing changing exhibitions for institutions such as schools, town hall and fire department.

The Bates College Museum of Art is located on the historic campus of Bates College, in Lewiston’s mountain area. This museum specializes in collecting 19th and 20th century drawings and prints, as well as a collection of works by Marsden Hartley and other exhibitions, which rotate 4 to 5 times per year.

In the mid coast, the Belfast Historical Society and Museum exhibits features Belfast's maritime history, and notables like Percy Sanborn paintings and " All Things Belfast", including postcards, scrapbooks, photographs, and maps, with archives open by appointment for research.

Other museums are focused on modern art expressions, like Maine Art Museum Trail, exhibiting a listing of various public art collections found across the state. With more than 53,000 works of art, from artists associated with Maine, the exhibition include from ancient to contemporary collections, featuring also masterpieces from Renoir, Degas, Cassatt and Picasso.

Another interesting museum is the Colby College Museum of Art, located in Waterville, featuring an outstanding permanent collection of 18th, 19th and 20th century American art, along with an active temporary exhibition program throughout the year.
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Bowdoin College Museum Of Art in Brunswick is a fine arts museum with encyclopedic collections, including the Arctic exploration gear, natural history and anthropological material, in addition to temporary exhibitions. The Davistown Museum is located in Liberty and features archaeology tools and registry of Maine toolmakers, along with art and sculpture, as well.

The L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley was constructed in 1903 in a building of Romanesque style of brick and pink granite designed by Mr. Wm. Miller inside the campus of the Good Will Home for Boys and Girls founded in 1889 by Reverend George Walter Hinckley. This museum houses art, archaeology, natural history, and Americana.

Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland features the work of many popular Maine artists, including the well-known Wyeth paintings, while the Ogonquit Museum of American Art, situated in the city of the same name (Ogunquit) houses an internationally well-known permanent collection of 20th century American art.

In Portland, Maine, Portland Museum of Art features an extensive collection from the 18th century to the present, with fine and decorative arts. In this same city, the Children's Museum of Maine holds a wide variety of interactive exhibits and programs for children and adults of all ages.

The University of Maine Museum of Art is located on the University campus in Orono, and features exhibitions organized from the permanent collection, but also hosting an annual calendar of exhibitions and programs, including contemporary artists, but particularly ideas and projects on a variety of traditional and non-traditional media.

In Kingfield, the Stanley Museum housed in a 1903 school building, contains 1905, 1910, and 1916 paintings, airbrush portraits, photography and family archives, as well as violins and steam cars. While in Bangor, the Maine Discovery Museum is famous for its exhibitions and activities aimed for children of all ages.

The Wyeth Center in Rockland is associated with the Farnsworth Museum, featuring works by the Wyeth family. Several historic homes in Maine are preserved as museums as well, including the Lucy Farnsworth, and the Wadsworth Longfellow, the Page Farm and Home Museum, and the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum among many others.

In the capital city, Augusta, the Maine State Museum highlights the history of the state and its people, including the Acadian culture in the St. John Valley. However, there are many other museums in Augusta, including the Old Fort Western, and the Children's Discovery Museum.

Transportation and maritime history have their own exhibit space across the state. Starting at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, or the Portland Harbor Museum featuring a working lighthouse, a 19th century fort and vistas of Casco Bay, just to mention a few of the many museums exhibiting Maine’s nautical heritage.

The Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Company and Museum in Portland, the Owl's Head Transportation Museum, the Seal Cove Auto Museum, as well as the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum (WWF), are museums, which feature transportation collections

In Kennebunkport, the Seashore Trolley Museum is considered a living history of public transportation. In Boothbay, the Boothbay Railway Village features a narrow gauge coal fired steam train in a frame of a recreated historic village composed of Maine's significant historic structures.

The Oakfield Railroad Museum in the city of Oakfield is housed in a historic wooden frame station building, and features vintage signs, signal lanterns, original railroad maps, telegraph equipment, newspapers, and photographs, besides of restored mail carts, Hand Car and a Motor Car, and the C-66 caboose.

Among special interest museums, we can name the Center for Maine History in Portland, the Fifth Maine Regiment Museum in Peaks Island, the Northern Maine Museum of Science, and the New England Museum of Telephony in Ellsworth, the Natural history museum, or the Old Fort Western in Augusta.

Maine Military Historical Society Museum, the Nylander Museum, the Northern Timber Cruisers Snowmobile Museum, or the George B. Dorr, Museum of Natural History in Bar Harbor, are also worth a visit, the same goes for the History Museums in Brunswick endorsed by the Pejepscot Historical Society.

Visit the House Museums operated by the Society for Preservation of New England Antiquities or the Millinocket with snowmobiles from the 1960s and a 1943 Toboggan. Ride a trolley at the Seashore Trolley Museum, watching a bi-plane soar at Owl's Head Transportation Museum, and even traveling back in time at the Norlands Living History Center.