Close Navigation

2022-09-24 03:58:53 By : Ms. Julie Zhang

Please enter a search term.

Please enter a search term.

West Virginia flag on a flagpole waving in the wind, blue sky background. 3d rendering. (Photo Courtesy: Getty Images)

West Virginia flag on a flagpole waving in the wind, blue sky background. 3d rendering. (Photo Courtesy: Getty Images)

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — West Virginia is home to some unique specialty museums that you can visit on your next trip into the state or around it.

Tripadvisor allows users to rate different attractions, hotels and other travel services. Here are the 10 best specialty museums in the Mountain State, according to Tripadvisor rankings.

The Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine and Youth Museum is home to the Rahall Company Store, Mine Museum and the Youth Museum of Southern West Virginia.

Guests can ride through the mine in a ‘man car’ that holds 35 people, and use it as an escape from the summer heat, as it’s 58 degrees year round, according to the West Virginia Department of Tourism. The tour guides are veteran miners that guests are helping to keep employed, and they can share firsthand accounts about the responsibilities and tasks that come with working in a coal mine in the past and the present.

Click here to learn more about the museum.

Anyone familiar with the legend of Mothman wouldn’t be surprised that the museum dedicated to West Virginia’s most infamous resident is one of the Mountain State’s most popular.

The Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant is right next door to the Mothman Statue. The town is where sightings of Mothman are said to have occurred.

The museum contains the largest collection of props and memorabilia from the movie “The Mothman Prophecies”, historical documents from Mothman sighting witnesses and historical press clippings and photographs of the Silver Bridge disaster.

Click here to learn more about the museum.

This Weston museum has more than 20,000 pieces of glass on display, interactive activities for children, and is the home of The National Marble Museum and a dynamic library and archives for research on-site, according to the West Virginia Department of Tourism.

Click here to learn more about the museum.

The building once housed a Victorian school, but now it’s packed with childhood nostalgia for generations.

The Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum in Wheeling is home to thousands of toy trains, dolls and dollhouses, cars and trucks, miniatures, toy soldiers, Western toys, ride-on toys and more, according to the West Virginia Department of Tourism.

Sometimes, Santa even stops by.

Click here to learn more about the museum.

The museum will soon have a new location after the original burned down in 2018. It’s taken them a long time to rebuild, but the new location will include a 2,400-gallon aquarium that houses Ohio and Kanawha river fish, towboat pilot house simulators and exhibits about river life and commercial enterprise on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, as well as sternwheel steamers, river disasters and the local river industry’s contribution to World War II.

Click here to learn more about the museum as it prepares to reopen.

Here’s where its new location will be:

According to the West Virginia Department of Tourism, Huntington’s Museum of Radio and Technology is the largest antique radio museum in the U.S. with more than 400 radios from 1924-1970, windup phonographs, 1939 World’s Fair TV camera, A.C. Gilbert toy display, telegraph items, William Wrigley (chewing gum maker) radio, early TV’s, military radios, early radio advertising and thousands of items on display related to radio and electronics.

It is also home to the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame.

Click here to learn more about the museum.

Used until the mid-1980s, the Martinsburg Roundhouse is the only cast iron-framed structure of its kind still standing today, according to the West Virginia Department of Tourism.

The historical roots of the building run deep, with it serving as the site of the First National Labor Strike of 1877 and as a key site early during the Civil War.

Reservations are required for tours of the building and must be made at least 10 days in advance. Reservations can be made here.

The building can also be rented out as an event venue.

Click here to learn more.

The Whipple Company Store in Scarbro was purchased by a private owner in October of 2018 and closed in 2019, according to its website.

It was once served as the center of a coal mining community in the heart of Whipple, Fayette County and offered everything from a one-stop-shop, with everything from food to healthcare, and offered haunted tours.

In 2015, the museum created a room where coal miners’ relatives can research their family histories.

At the time it was purchased, it was believed that the building would undergo renovations and eventually reopen.

This unique wax figure museum details John Brown’s hatred of slavery, traces his violent exploits and depicts scenes from his daring raid on Harpers Ferry, according to the West Virginia Department of Tourism.

According to the museum’s website, there are 87 life-size figures and kiosks with voice, music, and animation used to tell Brown’s life story.

Click here to learn more about the museum.

After Mothman, the Flatwoods or Braxton County Monster is probably West Virginia’s most famous cryptid.

The Flatwoods Monster Museum is located right on Main Street in downtown Sutton, Braxton County. Displays include one-of-a-kind collections and artifacts, historic items, memorabilia, books and more, according to the West Virginia Department of Tourism, and the gift shop includes plenty of novelty items, such as shirts, figures, stickers, shot glasses and lanterns.

WV Tourism suggests visitors call ahead to ensure availability.

Click here to learn more about the museum.

Copyright 2022 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.