About the West Virginia State Museum
The West Virginia State Museum traces its collection to the West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society, organized in the Senate Chamber of the State House in Charleston on January 30, 1890 and given space on the first floor of the capitol to show what it gathered. On April 3, 1894, Governor William A. MacCorkle held a reception to open the State Museum in the 1885 capitol at the head of Capitol Street, combining the society's holdings with the artifacts West Virginia had sent to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. An act of the legislature on February 18, 1905 made the society's collection legally part of the museum, which moved into the Capitol Annex of 1903, a move that saved it from the capitol fire of 1921.
When Cass Gilbert's present capitol was finished in 1932 the museum went into its basement, where it stayed until the state built it a home of its own. The West Virginia Science and Culture Center, now the Culture Center, opened on the Capitol Complex on July 11, 1976 with a chronological walk through state history. After a five-year closure and a $17.9 million remodel, the renovated museum reopened in June 2009 with new conservation mounts, scenic settings, and architectural design elements intended to protect the collection for generations. It is operated by the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History.
The museum's stated purpose covers every aspect of West Virginia history, culture, art, paleontology, archaeology, and geology from all regions of the state. Notable holdings include a Civil War regimental flag collection, conserved with a Save America's Treasures grant awarded in 2001; early medical instruments of pioneer physician Joseph Robins; Fiesta tableware from the Homer Laughlin China Company of Newell; and the Wilson Stone, or Braxton County rune stone, a carved sandstone found in 1931 that a University of Michigan archaeologist later judged a probable hoax.
Collections and Research Services
The same building houses the West Virginia Archives and History Library, the state's principal genealogy and local-history reading room, located to the right of the Culture Center's front entrance. The library is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (staff hours are Monday through Friday); it closes on some holidays, so call (304) 558-0230 before visiting. Guidelines adopted in 2017 restrict what visitors may bring in, and key-operated lockers are provided near the entrance. The archives will not answer research requests by email: requests must be submitted in writing to the Archives and History Library, The Culture Center, 1900 Kanawha Boulevard East, Charleston, WV 25305-0300, with a $10 research fee for West Virginia residents or $20 for out-of-state requests. Before writing, search the free online databases of births, deaths, and marriages and the West Virginia Memory Project at wvculture.org, and see our guides to free family history research and finding where someone is buried.
Planning Your Visit
The museum's posted hours are Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., closed Sundays and major holidays, and admission is free. Note that at the time of writing the Department's website reported the State Museum temporarily closed for maintenance while the Culture Center's Great Hall and Balcony Gallery exhibits remained open, so check wvculture.org or call (304) 558-0220 before making the trip. Group tours are booked through the Museum Education Coordinator at the same number.
From I-64/77 take Exit 99 (Greenbrier Street) and follow Greenbrier Street into the Capitol Complex. Metered visitor parking in the Greenbrier Street lot costs 25 cents an hour (bring quarters) with a four-hour limit on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and is free evenings, weekends, and state holidays; a free Capitol shuttle runs from the public lot beside Laidley Field during weekday commuting hours, and accessible metered spaces are in the bus loop by the Culture Center. In the Eastern Panhandle, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park covers the raid and the Civil War campaigns that led to statehood in 1863.
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