PORTLAND HAS ITS charms, but some of Oregon’s most bizarre, dazzling, and notable museums lurk outside city limits.The largest clear-span wooden structure in the world? Check. The largest pig hairball in the world? Check. Our very own Frank Lloyd Wright house? Check, again!
Most of these destinations make for a reasonable day trip, so whether you’re flying solo, inviting a significant other, or packing the whole family into the car, you can see, contemplate, and make it home in time for dinner.
In 1942, the US Navy began construction on 17 wooden hangars meant to house antisubmarine patrol and convoy escort blimps. Two hangars were created at the Naval Air Station in Tillamook during World War II, but only one has survived—and it’s the largest clear-span wooden structure in the world. The hangar contains up to 28 aircraft, including the Grumman F-14 Tomcat (Tom Cruise flew one in Top Gun), the Soviet MiG-17 (a 1950s subsonic jet that went toe to toe with American supersonic jets in Vietnam), and several land vehicles, like the 1940 International Boom truck.
GOOD FOR: KIDS, AIRPLANE ENTHUSIASTS, HISTORY BUFFS ADMISSION: $4–13
Opened in 2010 (on the 25th anniversary of The Goonies, in the former Clatsop County jail, a location used in the film), the Oregon Film Museum is a small and Goonies-centric delight. There’s a hands-on, make-your-own short film component, and a rundown of some of the state’s highest-profile productions, from Kindergarten Cop to Twilight. For completists, the museum’s website contains a running list of every single film that’s been shot in the Beaver State.
GOOD FOR: FILM BUFFS, GOONIES-HEADS ADMISSION: $2–6
No need to pilgrimage to Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, to worship at the altar of American architectural treasure Frank Lloyd Wright—his only Oregon project is just an hour south of Portland. In 1957, the always-ahead-of-his-time architect designed a home for Oregon farmers Conrad and Evelyn Gordon. The Gordons lived there for nearly four decades; when the property was sold, the home was moved to a new location at the Oregon Garden in Silverton, where it is now open for tours. The home is a prime example of Wright’s Usonian style, in which he aimed to design thoughtful, modern homes at lower price points. Don’t miss the wood cutout window pattern, what Wright called “fretwork.”
GOOD FOR: ARCHITECTURE BUFFS…ESPECIALLY ONES WHO CAN SHELL OUT $599 FOR AN OVERNIGHT STAY FOR FOUR ADMISSION: $20 (AGES 17 AND UNDER FREE)
Reignite your childlike sense of wonder (and let your kids ignite theirs) at the Historic Carousel and Museum of Albany. The main event is a 1909 carousel whose restoration began in 2004 and took until 2017 to complete. It sports a menagerie of 52 animals, dreamt up and sponsored by different Albany families, then carved and painted by local volunteers. The adjacent museum features carousel animals and decorations dating back to 1885.
GOOD FOR: KIDS, THE YOUNG AT HEART
ADMISSION: MUSEUM FREE, CAROUSEL RIDES $2
Can we interest you in the world’s largest pig hairball? A pair of deformed calves? Perhaps a painstaking replica of Jesus’s crown of thorns? Tucked into the corner of an active seminary in a remote stretch of Marion County (which also houses a library designed by Finnish architectural legend Alvar Aalto), the Mount Angel Abbey Museum is an ode to the natural world, in all its (often-grotesque) glory. The views from the grounds are stunning, and a short walk away lies Benedictine Brewery, owned and operated by the monks who live at the abbey. Beers are brewed with hops grown on-site and water from their well.
GOOD FOR: NATURE APPRECIATORS, BEER LOVERS
ADMISSION: FREE, OPTIONAL DONATION
Can’t decide between natural history and history-history? This 48,000-square-foot museum, full of interactive multimedia exhibits, makes a good spot to while away a few hours as you learn about the Ice Age (don’t miss the full-size mammoth replica), the geological forces that shaped the Gorge (hint: volcanoes are involved), and 10,000 years of Indigenous history. The highlight, though, is the Raptor Program, where visitors can meet birds of prey, like bald eagles, red tailed hawks, and American kestrels.
GOOD FOR: KIDS, HISTORY BUFFS, BIRD LOVERS
ADMISSION: $7–12 (AGES 5 AND UNDER FREE)
There are no trains in sight at this sprawling Hood River spot, but planes and automobiles (and motorcycles) abound. With one of the largest collections of still-flying antique aircrafts and cars in the country, the WAAAM—no connection to George Michael—boasts several acres of exhibition space. It also has no problem flexing for the benefit of its patrons: on the second Saturday of every month, staff and volunteers haul out the planes and cars for public demonstration.
GOOD FOR: BUDDING ENGINEERS, HISTORY BUFFS, ANYONE WHO LIKES THINGS THAT GO ZOOM
ADMISSION: $11–21 (AGES 4 AND FREE)
This museum claims to be the only one along the Oregon Trail to tell the story of westward expansion from the point of view of the Indigenous people—specifically the Cayune, Umatilla, and Walla Walla tribes—whose world was upended to the extreme by Lewis, Clark, and all who came after. But the museum doesn’t begin, or end, there. Permanent exhibits take visitors back to pre-contact days, including a reconstructed lodge made of tule reeds in which visitors can sit and listen to recordings of legends passed down through countless generations. There’s no shying away, either, from artifacts that depict the miseries imposed by settlers: disease, war, forced boarding schools that tore families apart. But there’s hope here, too, in the forward-looking final galleries that celebrate Native cultural perseverance.
GOOD FOR: EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO SHOULD KNOW THE OREGON TRAIL IS ABOUT MORE THAN DYING OF DYSENTERY
ADMISSION: $5–12 (AGES 5 AND UNDER FREE)
This mid-19th-century building in John Day has lived a lot of lives: trading post, temple, community center for the city’s once-robust Chinese population, boardinghouse, apothecary. Now a designated state park and National Historic Site, it’s leaned hard into the apothecary aspect, returning to its medicine-heavy 1940 appearance, complete with the possessions of its former owners, vintage furniture, and various period-appropriate Chinese medicinal tools. Oregon is here for it, including Governor Tina Kotek, who approved plans for a new interpretative center and collections building that will help keep up with high visitor demand.
GOOD FOR: HISTORY LOVERS, EASTERN MEDICINE ENTHUSIASTS ADMISSION: FREE (OPEN MAY 1–OCT 31 AND THE THIRD WEEK OF MARCH)
While it’s more roadside attraction than museum (OK, it’s fully a roadside attraction), we would nonetheless be remiss to exclude this bizarre little slice of PNW lore. Opened in 1930, the Vortex has been the subject of a Mythbusters-style takedown on Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files and mentioned on a season 7 episode of The X-Files. A variety of strange phenomena plague the property: brooms stand on end, gravity seems to bend, heights ebb and flow—it’s all packaged as paranormal, though the Vortex’s “no moving video” rule admittedly makes us cock a skeptical brow.
GOOD FOR: THE SUPERSTITIOUS AND SKEPTICAL ALIKE
ADMISSION: $16–22 (5 AND UNDER FREE
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