12 Museums of Odd Things

By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted May 18, 2009 5:02 PM CDT
12 Museums of Odd Things
Barbed wire.   (AP Photo)

Trying to awake from the nightmare of history? Mental Floss' list of 12 "oddly specific" American museums may only give you bad dreams:

  • The SPAM Museum: Complete with a wall of 5,000 SPAM tins and a scale plant where visitors can suit up in white coats and hardhats, the Austin, Minn., museum is "guaranteed fun for the whole canned-pork-loving family."
  • The Hobo Museum: True to form, the monument to tramps is open sporadically; go during the Hobo Convention and experience the real thing down by tracks in Britt, Iowa.

  • The Barbed Wire Museum: Located in McLean, Texas, this museum details the history of the nasty fencing. Apparently, a "mutated coffee grinder" brought it into the world.
  • The Conspiracy Museum: Just down the street from the Texas School Book Depository, this oddity screens the Zapruder film and has info on less-accepted theories of the JFK assassination.
  • The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices: "Take two trips" to this collection at the Science Museum of Minnesota and "call us when you've lost all faith in the medical profession."
  • The Trash Museum: With a Temple of Trash, an "old-fashioned town dump," and an attached Children's Museum of Trash, this Hartford, Conn., museum is dirty fun for everyone.
For the full list, please click the link below.
(More museums stories.)

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