Museums & Galleries in Weirton Heights
Recommended Museums & Galleries by Groupon Customers
On the rolling hillsides of Wheeling, West Virginia, the white pillars of the Mansion Museum stand majestically over the manicured lawns and landscaped gardens of the Oglebay Institute. Originally built in 1846 as an eight-bedroom farmhouse, the mansion entered the Oglebay family in 1900, and was willed to the city 30 years later to serve as a facility for education and recreation. Today it features a rotation of exhibits and programs, which share fine art, glassware, and environmental education with more than 100,000 people annually.
Tucked next to the Mansion, the glass museum has collected some 3,000 pieces of Wheeling glass, cut lead crystal, and Victorian art glass. The Sweeney Punch Bowl, a 5-foot, 225-pound piece of cut lead crystal, is the jewel of the collection, epitomizing the aesthetic splendor and unwieldy nature of most Victorian-era flasks. The Schrader Environmental Education Center imparts visitors with an appreciation for the natural world with interactive trail tours, campfires, and astronomy events; and the Stifle Fine Arts Center's ever-changing visual-arts exhibits display work from local and national artists.
Rising six floors above the historic Strip District, the Senator John Heinz History Center's handsome, redbrick exterior houses 275,000 square feet of exhibits and materials devoted to Western Pennsylvania. Long-term exhibits include From Slavery to Freedom, which traces the quest for equality from the antislavery movement to the modern struggles for Civil Rights, using indenture, manumission, and freedom papers from the Allegheny County recorder of deeds as starting points. Pittsburgh: A History of Innovation highlights the land's original inhabitants, the journey of Lewis and Clark, and the modern superhighways, whereas the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum delves into the history and lore of local athletics, from the Steelers’ Immaculate Reception to Bill Mazeroski's title-clinching home run in game seven of the 1960 World Series. The museum also hosts nationally renowned traveling exhibits; its current offering is 1968: The Year That Rocked America which explores this decade-defining year using evocative objects, multimedia displays, and more than 100 artifacts related to 1968’s seminal moments.
Established in 1832, J.J. Gillespie Gallery furnishes its walls with a wide range of art from American and international artists. In an attached workshop, a master framer meticulously preserves keepsakes inside custom wood or metal frames. The gallery also hosts an onsite art expert, who can appraise oil-based works or clean and restore them to their former luster.
The Canton Classic Car Museum exhibits 45 pristine and restored automobiles from yesteryear, which mingle among rare memorabilia pulled from the last two centuries. In one of the decade-focused rooms, a Packard hearse shares floor space with a 1937 bulletproof Studebaker, a car designed to protect policemen from bank robbers and dive-bombing pigeons. American icons such as the 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible offset rare and little-known models such as the Holmes, built in Canton and declared possibly America's ugliest car.
Filling the walls and the spaces between the cars, oriental rugs and vintage Tonka trucks mix in with treasures from Canton’s bygone era. A fortune-telling machine from Meyers Lake Amusement Park stands ready to peer into the future, porcelain signs advertise businesses long since closed, and political keepsakes from President McKinley’s term remind viewers of a time when the political machine was focused on keeping outer space from crushing Earth.
MAPS Air Museum’s historical exhibits and collection of military aircraft educate visitors on military aviation history and Northwest Ohio’s role in it. Restored aircraft such as the F-86 SabreDog and B-26 Marauder (one of only seven on display in the world) give guests an up-close look at actual mechanical birds, rather than having to imagine real birds being piloted by humans. Permanent displays on Pearl Harbor, the Tuskegee Airmen, and Rosie the Riveter delve into iconic moments of World War II, and artifacts and memorabilia from veteran Reamer E. “Buzz” Sewell trace one soldier’s journey. For more information on tours or special events, visit the museum online.
