Beyond historic American icons such as Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty, there are plenty more ways to experience US history. The States’ top attractions include new archeological discoveries and Indigenous heritage spots, Civil War memorials and key sites from the Civil Rights Trail. Best of all, you can step back centuries with the help of living museums and immersive Old West experiences that bring the past to life.
Scroll through the gallery to see how our well-traveled team has (subjectively) ranked the must-see historic attractions in every US state...
A temple to consumer cleaning products and tools, this hidden gem of a museum is surprisingly large and stuffed with wacky exhibits such as Old English City, featuring Victorian chimney sweeps, and Garden of Clean, plus evocative memorabilia of decades past. A collection of vintage vacuum cleaners includes the first patented design, plus there are myriad mops, strange brushes and brooms, and even retro packages of everyday items including soap and washing powder.
The Guardians of the vital Santa Fe Trail that linked the US and Mexico during the Indian Wars were once housed inside the Fort Larned Army Post, a few miles from the small Kansas city. Amazingly well preserved, you can tour the 1860s fort and its nine authentically restored buildings, which include the barracks, commissary, officers' quarters, blacksmith workshop, and quartermaster’s storehouse.
They tell the story of the turbulent Indian Wars, alongside living history events with the Old Guard where the cavalry and infantry perform traditional drills.
Once a summer getaway for America’s elite – including the Rockefellers, Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, Astors, and Fords, who built grand mansions along the shore – Mount Desert Island’s Bar Harbor offers a microcosm of the 19th-century Gilded Age with Victorian shop-lined streets that can be explored on a guided walking tour through downtown. Though many of the island’s architectural wonders were razed in a fire in 1947 and never rebuilt, other impressive examples such as La Rochelle (pictured) have been thoughtfully restored into heritage museums and hotels.
For the true story behind Sin City, the grand Mob Museum offers an unfiltered and enlightening account. Find fun immersive exhibits and a prohibition-era speakeasy in the basement, plus several floors of in-depth exhibits on notorious gangsters and the influence of the mob in Vegas and beyond, the most memorable of which is the actual bullet hole-covered wall from the Valentine’s Day Massacre hit in 1929 by Al Capone’s gang.
Travel back in time 200 years at vintage factory town Allaire, a living history museum that recreates a 19th-century ironworks complete with restored mills and boarding houses, a bakery, smithy, and forge, and a supposedly haunted ‘Big House’ now manned by volunteers in full 1800s regalia. Costumed actors give guided tours of the Howell Works that used to make cast-iron products, while blacksmiths and carpenters give demonstrations in the workshops.
Family-friendly events include History Kids Club sessions with tea tasting for the adults.
While the wooden jailhouses and swing-doored saloons of the Wild West were rapidly replaced by the glass and concrete of the modern world, Tombstone was restored as a tourist attraction that looks like a movie set but is, in fact, a real boomtown founded in 1879 and preserved for posterity. Among the highlights are daily re-enactments of the famous OK Corral gunfight, the bullet-riddled Birdcage Theatre, and Boothill Graveyard where you’ll see the tombstones of pioneers and notorious outlaws.
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The old town of Skagway is a quaint remnant of late-19th-century Alaskan heritage and was a key trading and transportation hub for Klondike Gold Rush miners and prospectors. It features vintage storefronts, hotels, and the storied Red Onion Saloon with classic streetcar tours of the historic district.
You can’t miss the rustic façade of the much-photographed Arctic Brotherhood Hall, which dates from 1899 and once featured more than 8,800 driftwood sticks collected from the shores of Skagway Bay.
Explore the historic town of Harpers Ferry and tread in the footsteps of famous historical figures such as abolitionist John Brown, who led an anti-slavery raid here in 1859. You can learn more about that history at the John Brown Museum and John Brown's Fort, which dates from before the Civil War.
A trip through time is offered in the town’s well-preserved 19th-century landscape too, where you’ll find a cute confectionery and dry goods store full of vintage items among the rows of stores.
The cozy New England state of New Hampshire is bursting with the history of the area's first British settlers, who built a colony in Portsmouth in 1623 on the lands of the Abenaki people. Living museum Strawbery Banke offers the chance to step back 350 years in time at the restored waterfront neighborhood of Puddle Dock, which recreates the state’s colonial history with period structures staffed by interpreters in 17th-century costume. The historic houses are open seasonally from the end of April to the end of October.
One of America’s newest heritage exhibitions, Africatown Heritage House sheds light on a dark era of history through the archeological remains of the Clotilda – the last slave ship to smuggle captive Africans to the US in the 1800s. Excavations of the ship and its haul of artifacts began in 2019, and much of what was found is now displayed in a moving exhibition that opened in summer 2023 at the center of the Africatown community, where descendants of the surviving enslaved people now bring their stories to life.
A big hit with kids and aviation buffs, the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base contains an impressive collection of historical military aircraft, some of which saw service in World War II. Large war transport airplanes, a characterful B-17G Flying Fortress, and smaller bombers are housed inside a hangar with interactive exhibits, while outside on the tarmac, visitors can see more than 25 specimens including Lodestars, Starlifters, and rescue helicopters, then climb aboard an old aircraft carrier.
Harley-Davidson has had a place in American culture for more than a century, and at this retro temple to the motorcycle brand, you can journey through decades of successes and trials of an iconic American manufacturer, as well as learning about its rich racing history. There’s plenty of nostalgia in the Motorcycle Galleries, which showcase bike models from the original 1903 prototype right through to the present day, while family-friendly Build a Bike and Imagination Station let kids rev a vintage Knucklehead engine.
An absolute must for fans of the American Old West, five museums in one complex offer a broad overview of the era at the Buffalo Bill Center in Cody. Immerse yourself in thrilling Wild West tales at the Buffalo Bill Museum before visiting the dark and atmospheric Plains Indian Museum to watch these stories unfold in striking exhibits featuring beautifully preserved headdresses and artifacts. Then see those tales illustrated in the Whitney Western Art Museum’s collection and historic weaponry housed in the Cody Firearms Museum.
Discover the captivating history and secrets of America's Old West in historic images
The horse culture of the old American West is illuminated at North Dakota’s immersive Cowboy Hall of Fame in historic Medora, which sits on the edge of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Alongside the central hall of fame highlighting famous cowboys and cowgirls, a medley of interactive galleries and a theater showcase the history of rodeo and ranching as well as the stories of Native Americans and homesteaders who lived in the plains long ago, including a new Great Western Trail exhibit on the history of cattle drives.
Considered one of the finest antebellum homes in North Carolina, the Smith-McDowell House – built by enslaved workers more than 20 years before the outbreak of Civil War – is now home to the Asheville Museum of History, which reopened in fall 2023, just a stone's throw from George Vanderbilt's grand Biltmore Estate. Exhibitions tell stories of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachian heritage, and new guided walk-throughs reveal rooms recreated to reflect the lives and times of former occupants of this historic home.
Lincoln family and locomotive history collide at the Hildene Estate in scenic Manchester, built by Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who was also president of the Pullman Company at the turn of the 20th century. Today the restored antique Pullman rail car on the grounds pulls in visitors as much as guided tours of the Georgian Revival mansion itself, which is a time capsule of Lincoln family memorabilia and where Abraham’s descendants continued to live until the 1970s.
Get up-close to tanks, airplanes, and artillery from World War I at America’s official museum dedicated to this early 20th-century conflict. A must-visit for history buffs, this huge institution holds one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of objects and documents from the Great War, and includes reconstructions of trench warfare alongside original uniforms, gas masks, weapons, and moving personal testimonies from veterans.
The Museum of Flight is a winner for history enthusiasts and families. Its fun collection of flying machines charts key moments in modern history, from the first powered flight through two world wars, to supersonic Concorde and the Apollo space missions.
The centerpiece is a glass gallery full of aircraft that trace the first century of flight. Exhibits cover the Vietnam War from the air too, with an outdoor memorial park featuring an iconic B-52G Stratofortress plane and Returning Airman statue.
For an insightful but disturbing overview of the journey to freedom for America’s enslaved peoples, head to the modern National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, which has multimedia exhibits, artworks, and several 30-minute films telling moving stories about the human cost of slavery. A 19th-century slave pen found on the farm of a Kentucky slave trader brings the message home further, alongside a huge, colorful RagGonNon quilt depicting African-American life that took artist Aminah Robinson more than 30 years to create.
One of the nation’s most important Civil Rights history spots, Little Rock Central High School was where a group of students dubbed the Little Rock Nine played a critical role in furthering the Civil Rights movement, becoming the first African Americans to attend the previously all-white school in 1957. The site – still a functioning school – is now managed by the National Park Service with an informative visitor center opposite the campus offering exhibits, a bookstore, and guided interpretive tours.
You might think one State Capitol is much the same as the next, but while they all tend to be grand domed designs housing the state’s legislature, Iowa’s is particularly flashy with an impressive five domes and historic landmark status. The gleaming 23-karat gold main dome sits 275 feet (84m) high and has been re-gilded four times since it was first erected in 1886.
Inside, visitors can climb halfway up the dome, and tour its richly decorated halls, spiral staircases, and impressive central atrium. The state's first-hand history is on show in the accompanying State Historical Museum of Iowa.
Michigan’s legacy as a post-industrial trailblazer, home of Motor City and Henry Ford, is brought into sharp focus at the fascinating Museum of American Innovation, which celebrates a history of ingenuity and mold-breaking minds. Interactive exhibits let visitors see inside the bus where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, or play pilot in a Wright Brothers flight simulation.
The museum also holds an unparalleled collection of antique machinery and vintage vehicles that have influenced American culture for the past 100 years.
A beautiful snapshot of early 1900s Portland, Pittock Mansion has stood watch over the city for more than a century, witnessing it blossom from a frontier stumptown to an industrial center for the region. As a heritage house museum, its 23 rooms include a library, music room with an original grand piano, and Turkish smoking room.
They each offer a vision of the past, with French Renaissance-style interiors and a roster of insightful exhibitions covering different aspects of Portland’s history.
On Kentucky’s Civil War Heritage Trail and the Lincoln Heritage Scenic Highway, Hodgenville sits at a crossroads of US history. As the first home of US president Abraham Lincoln, a monumental memorial building in the National Historical Park houses Lincoln’s humble log cabin birthplace.
Visitors can also stroll the grounds to Sinking Spring, which would have been the Lincoln family's main water source, and see his boyhood home at nearby Knob Creek Farm.
Among the most epic events of the western frontier, the Battle of Little Bighorn broke out in southeastern Montana in 1876. It saw the US Army’s 7th Cavalry, led by Colonel Custer, defeated by Native American troops from the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne tribes under the leadership of Sitting Bull.
Today, you can tour the battleground and Last Stand Hill, littered with the tombstones of fallen troops, while the nearby Indian Memorial features castings of Indigenous warriors, and the visitor center illuminates the story with talks and artifacts.
The quaint New England state of Connecticut is bursting with mid-century charm, dotted with covered wooden bridges and heritage inns. For a nostalgic trip to a bygone era that’s perfect for a family day out, board the steam engine at the 1892 railroad station in the cute riverside town of Essex for an hour-long ride in vintage carriages through Connecticut’s pristine river valley.
Train journeys can be teamed with trips on a restored classic riverboat, taking passengers past historic spots such as the Gothic Revival-style Gillette Castle.
Indy devotes more space to honoring war veterans than any other city in the US and the vast Indiana War Memorial Plaza Historic District – originally designed after World War I and later expanded to honor veterans of other conflicts – exemplifies that with several war monuments. The downtown district covers 25 acres of green lawns, fountains, sculptures, and statues, and includes the expansive Indiana War Memorial Museum complete with military equipment, artifacts, and archive photos.
The ruins of the world’s largest flour mill is the atmospheric setting for the Mill City Museum. Through hands-on exhibits on everything from waterpower to baking bread, it tells the overlapping histories of the flour industry, the plains, the mighty Mississippi, and the place once known as Mill City.
The novel Flour Tower elevator takes visitors through eight levels of scenes from the antique mill, while a rooftop platform has impressive views over the historic Mississippi riverfront.
Architectural reminders of the Gilded Age dot the surf-soaked cliffs of the country's smallest state, Rhode Island, lending it a link to a bygone era seldom found elsewhere. Step inside another time at Newport Mansions, once owned by famous families such as the Astors, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts, epitomizing the showy architecture, art, lavish interiors, and landscaping of the late-19th-century elite.
The grandest of the properties – The Breakers – is open year-round, while opulent Marble House, The Elms, and Rosecliff have seasonal opening dates.
Scotts Bluff was a major landmark for pioneers traveling west across Nebraska’s vast prairies on the Oregon Trail, and today you’ll still find traces of history in the national monument park. Covered wagons dot the landscape, and the Oregon Trail Museum and Visitor Center fills visitors in on the area’s long history.
New interactive exhibits describe how Native Americans, fur traders, and emigrants interacted at Scotts Bluff, and works by artist William Henry Jackson include paintings of pioneers and evocative photos taken in 1871.
One of Oklahoma City’s top attractions and an essential stop for fans of frontier history, the experiential National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum contains a vast collection of Native American and Wild West artifacts, from antique wagons and guns to authentic tribal headdresses and artworks. Inside the atmospheric museum, you’ll find a recreated Old West town complete with homesteads, wooden barns, stables, and workshops, plus the world’s largest haul of American rodeo memorabilia.
The cute village of Historic Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle is more than a pretty place; this neighborhood is layered with 450 years of history, from its foundation as the first Spanish New World settlement in 1559. The European influence can still be glimpsed in the architecture of the former city hall, now Pensacola Museum of History, filled with exhibits highlighting surprising stories from northwest Florida.
Costumed actors stroll through a village packed with interesting antiques, restored cottages and outdoor kitchens preserved as they would have been in the late 18th century.
Travellers Rest Historic House Museum serves as a gateway into Nashville’s storied past. Set in the home of Judge John Overton, built in 1779, it preserves centuries of history within its walls while excavations have discovered the remains of a prehistoric Amerindian village within its grounds.
Award-winning exhibits include The Battle of Nashville, covering the Civil War; and A Past Uncovered, telling the story of the house’s enslaved workers. Guided tours of the main house depart on the hour.
One of the oldest seaports in the US, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor has seen centuries of history unfold. Its stellar collection of Historic Ships are floating museums offering portals into different eras of the city’s maritime heritage, starting with USS Constellation (pictured), built in 1854 as the last sail-only warship complete with cannons that are still fired daily.
Visitors can also explore the characterful 1930s patrol ship Chesapeake, World War II submarine USS Torsk, and a US Coast Guard Cutter designated a National Historic Landmark after seeing more than 50 years of service.
New Orleans’ French Quarter is replete with historic highlights, but none more so than the Cabildo. This elegant Spanish colonial building sits next to St Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, and was where the Louisiana Purchase land transfer was completed in December 1803, which gives some idea of the building’s long legacy.
Today, as home to the Louisiana State Museum, it houses many rare American historical artifacts to showcase the state's colorful history.
The aptly named Dinosaur National Monument on the border of Colorado and Utah is one of the country’s top destinations for spotting the perfectly preserved skeletons of prehistoric beasts. Visitors can see more than 1,500 skulls, vertebrae, and other dinosaur fossils exposed on the cliff face inside the Quarry Exhibit Hall a few miles from Jensen in Utah, with examples of the allosaurus, stegosaurus, and diplodocus species that once roamed the spectacular 200,000-acre park. Don't miss the ancient petroglyphs in nearby Cub Creek.
An immersive and captivating history lesson is offered at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, telling the shocking and courageous stories of the Civil Rights movement in the South and beyond. Engaging exhibitions bring these historic struggles and protests to life, honoring the movement’s key figures.
The galleries converge on a bright central space filled with dramatic multimedia sculpture This Little Light of Mine. Next door, the Museum of Mississippi History gives a broader overview of the state's rich history and diversity.
Abraham Lincoln’s home for 17 years – before he became the 16th US president in 1861 – is a true national treasure and the perfect place to take a more intimate look at the most prominent son of Illinois. Now a time capsule museum, you can step inside his restored private quarters full of personal artifacts on a guided tour with a National Park Service expert, as well as visiting other historic spots in the surrounding four-block neighborhood.
See remnants of a mysterious ancient civilization disguised among the windswept landscape of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, one of New Mexico’s three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The massive stone ruins and Puebloan structures sheltering beneath cliffs were likely the seat of an empire dating from around AD 850-1250, and Chaco Canyon is considered a sacred place by many Indigenous peoples.
A nine-mile loop trail links the major sites including Pueblo Bonito (pictured), and the park offers guided tours and atmospheric evening campfire talks.
As one of America's oldest cities, Charleston reverberates with heritage and history. Its latest institution dedicated to illuminating the past – the International African American Museum – opened in summer 2023 on the wharf where almost half of all African captives arrived in the US. Explore its galleries for an authentic and empathetic overview of the journey of the African American diaspora.
Outside, the peaceful African Ancestors Memorial Garden commemorates the enslaved people who passed through here.
Home to America's first English colony at Jamestown, Virginia is awash with reminders of the past, not least Arlington National Cemetery that has been a burial ground for soldiers since the American Civil War. The state’s chief treasure, however, is first president George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, where you can linger in grand chambers and gardens maintained as they were nearly 300 years ago, learn about the man himself in the 23 galleries of Donald W Reynolds Museum, and pay your respects at the Washington family tomb.
The site of a Spanish mission was the setting for the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, when almost all the mission’s defenders died including frontiersman and folk hero Davy Crockett. The Alamo served as a rallying cry that eventually led to Texan independence and today the battle is remembered at the distinctive old fortress, where you can learn more on a guided tour or take a quiet stroll around the exhibits.
Atlanta’s most visited attraction pays homage to the luminary of the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr, encompassing the places he was born, where he worshiped and was buried, and telling the story of the fight for racial equality through thoughtful and stirring exhibits. A beautiful place for a family history lesson, there’s room for reflection at the cascading water memorial and pool surrounding the tombs of Martin Luther King Jr and his wife, Coretta Scott King.
The historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and Birth Home are within a few minutes’ stroll.
Few places in the US are more evocative of the history of modern conflict than the site of the fateful attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that drew the US into World War II. Today, visitors to Pearl Harbor can see sunken remains of a fleet of US battleships marked by the USS Arizona Memorial, learn about the events surrounding the air raid including survivor testimonials at the visitor center, and climb aboard the behemoth Battleship Missouri (pictured), on which the Japanese surrendered at the end of the conflict.
A pivotal moment in American history, December 16, 1773, saw protesters against the British colonial monopoly on the tea trade dump a shipment of 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The event is now immortalized in Griffin's Wharf at Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, with replicas of the vessels Eleanor and Beaver, historic reenactments, interactive exhibits, and original artifacts inside the dock sheds, including the only surviving Robinson Tea Chest retrieved after it was sunk in the harbor some 250 years ago.
Offering one of the country's most scenic history lessons, UNESCO-listed Mesa Verde National Park reveals rare insights into how some of North America's earliest inhabitants once lived. Hike to its extensive petroglyph rock paintings, and down to the Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings tucked under rocky overhangs.
Then prepare to be awed by the sprawling Cliff Palace, four-story Square Tower House, and canyon trail to Step House. These are just some of the highlights of the 600 cliff dwellings that now form the largest archaeological preserve in the US.
Like Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower, some landmarks are synonymous with their homeland. None more so than New York’s Statue of Liberty, gifted to the US from France in 1885 as a symbol of freedom from oppression.
Get the best views of this 305ft-high (93m) monument out on the water on the free Staten Island Ferry, or brush up on your history with the audio guide on the official Statue City Cruises tour, which docks at the plinth where you can access the museum and climb to the crown.
America's most notorious island was once a military fort and site of one of the first lighthouses along the West Coast, but of course, it’s best-known as the feared offshore prison that housed inmates including Machine Gun Kelly and Al Capone between 1934 and 1963. Now, rather than trying to break out, people flock to Alcatraz on ferry tours to see its tumble-down buildings and cellhouses, with an audio guide narrating its history or behind-the-scenes tours exploring every nook of this sinister isle.
A man-made marvel to match the monuments of classical civilizations, the first glimpse of America’s most influential presidents etched into the sheer cliffs of South Dakota’s Black Hills will take your breath away. Get the best view of a 59-foot-high (18m) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt from the Presidential Trail.
Then don’t miss a trip to the interesting Sculptor’s Studio and Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center, or the evening lighting ceremony at the outdoor amphitheater.
History is around every corner in Pennsylvania, from the site of the bloodiest clash of the American Civil War in 1863 to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and US constitution were both signed. No place is more evocative of American history than Gettysburg, which instantly brings to mind Abraham Lincoln’s landmark presidential address.
See Civil War relics at the informative Gettysburg Museum of History before touring the battlefield and climbing the Pennsylvania Memorial for an elevated view. Looking to connect with the history of America? A visit to this profoundly moving place should be right at the top of your list.
Now see the amazing forts that shaped the American Civil War