Over my travels I have learned that some of the best roadside attractions have the most underwhelming names. One of my all time favorite locations, Museum of Appalachia is a fun house of bizarre artifacts buried under is super bland name. However, I think the title for most oddly boring name goes to the "City Museum" in St. Louis, MO. If you just heard the name "City Museum" you would probably think it was the most boring place in the world. This could not be further from the truth.
While the City Museum is indeed inside of a City, the title "museum" itself is almost a misnomer. Of course I would struggle to actually come up with a name for what this attraction actually is.
The City Museum provides no maps. There are hardly any explanations offered for what you are actually looking at. There are hardly any signs telling you where things are.....except this one.
The Whale is one of the first things you see when you walk in.
And so the insanity begins. There are random stair cases, tunnels and secret passages that take you other parts of the museum. You quickly loose track of where you are in the museum, how do you leave or even what floor you are on. The entire thing is like one giant piece of folk art posing as a museum.
While many of the slides, ladders and tunnels appeal to children, not all the artifacts are necessarily child friendly.
They do keep the museum tradition of having loads of taxidermy.
Some of it gets downright creepy....
They had some sideshow staples like shrunken heads..........
They have a Fiji Mermaid, but its looks more vicious than normal.....
As I said, there are no placards to tell you what you are actually looking at just straight up insanity.
If you mange to find your way outside there is maddening structure made of metal, full of mazes, slides and tunnels....
You can crawl to frightening heights and even sit in a gutted fighter jet.
Overall, it is very difficult to describe exactly what the City Museum IS. Is it a Museum? Is it a piece of art. Is a Chuck E. Cheese built by escaped mental patients? Who knows. But it is something that truly needs to be experienced to be understood.
The Carpetbagger
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