Milwaukee Public Museum

The Milwaukee Public Museum has more than four million artifacts in its collections, including many rocks and fossils that tell the history of the world. If you head to the geology department in the basement of the current museum space, you'll find wall-to-wall cabinets filled with rocks, fossils, and minerals.

At the Milwaukee Public Museum, millions of artifacts that aren’t on display are stored in back-room drawers and cabinets. As part of our series, Behind the Scenes at MPM, we’ll explore the zoology department’s vast bird collection.

Many Milwaukeeans are familiar with Samson, the beloved gorilla who died in 1981 at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Wildlife artist and world champion taxidermist, Wendy Christensen, made the popular recreation of Samson that’s on display at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Carol & Diane Amour of the Tribute Documentary Group join Lake Effect's Audrey Nowakowski to share more about future plans for the large rotating powwow exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum — "A Tribute to Survival."

The back rooms of the Milwaukee Public Museum are stashed with millions of items from its collection. In the anthropology department, a rare painting called “Menominee Women” serves as an uncommon record of how Native American women used European goods.

Packing for a move can be complicated. Now think about what it would be like to move an entire museum, with its fragile and sometimes ancient artifacts. That’s what’s happening at the Milwaukee Public Museum as it prepares to move to its new location in 2027.

Bubbler Talk question asker Dan Currier of Whitewater wants to know about a past iconic figure of Milwaukee: Where did the totem pole that stood in front of the old and the new Milwaukee Public Museum come from?

MPM President and CEO Ellen Censkyv talk about what guests will find familiar and what they’ll discover for the first time when the new museum opens by early 2027.

Alexa Alfaro, the co-founder and co-owner of Meat on the Street, talks about moving into the Milwaukee Public Museum.

The Milwaukee Public Museum has unveiled two exhibition concepts for the future museum, which is slated to open in 2026.