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Texas Memorial Museum, Austin

4.1

#11 of 16 in Museums in Austin

The Texas Memorial Museum, which is located on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, USA, is named in honor of the 1936 Texas Centennial. The museum's focus is on natural history, including paleontology, geology, biology, herpetology, ichthyology and entomology. At one point, the museum also had exhibits on Texas history, anthropology, geography, and ethnography, but these were relocated to other museums (including the Bullock Texas State History Museum) in 2001. The museum has 75,000 visitors annually.The building was designed in the Art Deco style by John F. Staub, with Paul Cret as supervising architect. Ground was broken for the building by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1936. The museum was opened on January 15, 1939.The museum won "Best of Austin" awards from the Austin Chronicle in 2002 and 2005.In October 2013, it was announced that the museum would be losing $400,000 in funding and that the staff would be reduced from twelve employees to four: the museum director, a security guard, a gift shop operator, and one other employee. The museum now is open five days a week and charges admission.

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Texas Memorial Museum Reviews

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61 reviews

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4.3

By Me9247 On January 27, 2018

As a lifelong Austenite, I had never been here. I heard of their Texas Wildlife Day and thought it would be a good time to go. They had all sort of displays beside the normal displays for the special ... more »
By kferrell1 On August 7, 2017

Located on the UT campus, is a small science musuem. Went on a Saturday, not many people there and had no trouble parking. Admission is $3/$2 for adult/child. The security guard seen when you walk in ... more »
By JenRaVo On July 8, 2017

The museum is tucked in the University of Texas campus. Tickets are inexpensive. Beautiful gem, mineral and paleontology collection. Took me and my 8 year about an hour to cover the whole thing. Nice ... more »

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By Harry Roberts On January 5, 2018

My favorite museum in Austin. Warm and cozy with many interesting exhibits. Super kid friendly. Dinosaurs and rock collections? Are you kidding me? They also allow you to bring in your nice DSLR cameras to shoot... how cool is that. One of the campus gems that every Austinite should experience... and it costs almost nothing to make a visit.

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By Huggy Bear On January 12, 2018

Wonderful, quant and informative for an old school (ha!) Natural History Museum.

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By Reneé Lasswell On December 17, 2017

Disappointed that the gift shop closes before the museum so we missed it and parking is difficult to find, but otherwise enjoyed the visit.

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By Jessica Tawn On August 16, 2017

Quite nice and relatively unknown musuem, I didn't know about this place until I came for a class. It's free admission for UT students and the gift shop is fairly priced. The staff are nice and polite as well. I'll be back!

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By Kimberly Zeh On August 23, 2017

Loved it. So much and so little! We have young toddlers and this to us 2 goes to complete... Which, in my opinion, is perfect for young kids.it's not over whelming and just pleasantly spaced and displayed Tip for new parents: the entrance Hall is full of gems and rocks/stones, my kids couldn't see some of it and were disinterested so I took out my.phone and used it like a magnifying glass to talk about colors and texture while in and out (check pics). Took us 20 mins just to get thru the first room! And we also circled around the paleontology gallery three times, noticing something new every time.

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