All Museums

About the Museum Learning Center:  If you’re looking for something that will dazzle you to see in a small town, be sure to stop by the Museums Learning Center (otherwise known as the “Dinosaur Musuem.”  This place is one huge labor of love and a microcosm of what makes this community special.   Your adventure starts in the hall of giants, a room full of massive life-like dinosaur and other Cretaceous Period animal replicas.  Surrounding those are shadow boxes filled with actual fossils from different periods.  On the west end of the hall is a glassed-in room where live Archaeologists periodically work in front of visitors scrupulously chiseling away the clay around the bones of the Missouri dinosaur.  The next layer of exhibits centers around the fossils of that now-famed dinosaur and the current dig happening just south of Sainte Geneviève.  The entire upstairs moves more toward modern times and focuses on interesting collections from a variety of topics, from Civil War Battlefields, to the objects found buried in the outhouses that used to reside in the yards of early St. Louisans.  The story that you won’t get that makes this so impressive is the collections on display, and the dinosaur Read more…

Old Mines Area Historical Society Keepers of the Last French Voice In unincorporated communities scattered across Washington County—hamlets bearing names like Old Mines, Potosi, Vieille Mine—situated inland from Ste. Genevieve, where St. Joachim’s Catholic Church anchors a community steeped in French heritage, a linguistic and cultural presence persists that most Americans never know exists: Missouri French, also called Paw Paw French, a dialect born nearly 300 years ago when French miners arrived to extract lead from Missouri earth, whose descendants continue speaking a language evolved through isolation, adaptation, and survival. The Old Mines Area Historical Society, founded in autumn 1977, dedicates itself to what might otherwise disappear entirely: documentation, celebration, and active preservation of this distinctly Missouri inheritance—ensuring that the voices of 18th-century settlers who named pawpaw trees, who crafted French words from frontier necessity, who built enduring community from remote landscape, continue speaking into futures that too easily forget. The Settlement: When French Miners Became Missourians Philippe François Renault arrived around 1720-1723, leading an expedition of artisans, laborers, and enslaved people from France through Santo Domingo and New Orleans, carrying expertise in identifying and extracting lead from the territory the French government had awarded him—part of the “Pays des Read more…

Pierre Menard Home The Louisiana Plantation Home in Southern Illinois Four miles north of Chester, Illinois, where a footpath connects to Fort Kaskaskia State Park and Mississippi River bottomlands stretch below a bluff, stands a French Creole mansion erected around 1802-1815 by a Québécois trader who arrived in the Illinois Country at fifteen and remained to become the first lieutenant governor of Illinois. The Pierre Menard Home—a two-and-a-half-story structure with hipped and dormered roof, wide wraparound galerie supported by sturdy square stone pillars, and proportions suggesting ease and established wealth—represents elegant frontier living at the moment when French colonial commerce was transforming into American territorial governance. Built by master carpenter Joseph Champaigne for Pierre Menard during those transformative early years of the 19th century, the house stands as rare surviving example of Louisiana-type plantation architecture constructed north of Louisiana, proof that French colonial building traditions persisted in the Illinois Country even as political authority shifted beneath them. The Man: From Fifteen-Year-Old Explorer to Lieutenant Governor Pierre Menard was born near Montreal, Quebec, on October 7, 1766—inheritor of French-Canadian identity in an era when French North America was rapidly becoming something else. At fifteen, he arrived in the Illinois Country as Read more…

Sainte Genevieve Art Center & Museum – Historic Legacy Meets Living Creativity Nestled comfortably in the shadow of the historic Sainte Geneviève Catholic Church at 310 Merchant Street, the Sainte Genevieve Art Center & Museum occupies a place of quiet significance in both the physical and cultural landscape of Missouri’s oldest town. This isn’t just another small-town art gallery—it’s a vital institution that illuminates Ste. Genevieve’s surprisingly important role in American art heritage while serving as an active, thriving hub for contemporary creativity. A Building with Its Own Story The Art Center is housed in a stately Norman-Revival stone building that itself tells a story of community pride and celebration. Built in 1934 in preparation for the city’s bicentennial celebration, the structure reflects the civic confidence and architectural ambition of Depression-era America. The choice of Norman-Revival style—with its solid stone construction, arched openings, and medieval European echoes—was particularly fitting for a town celebrating its French colonial heritage. That this beautiful building now serves as home to the Art Center creates a perfect synergy: historic architecture preserving and presenting both historic and contemporary art. The stone walls that once marked a bicentennial milestone now safeguard the legacy of artists who found Read more…

Ste. Genevieve Welcome Center At 66 South Main Street in the heart of downtown Ste. Genevieve, the Welcome Center serves as the essential first stop for visitors exploring America’s oldest settlement west of the Mississippi River and the gateway to Ste. Geneviève National Historical Park. Currently operated by the City and transitioning to National Park Service ownership, it functions as both tourism hub and official park visitor center, providing everything you need to understand and navigate what makes Ste. Genevieve remarkable. The centerpiece is Lewis Pruneau’s magnificent 12-foot by 12-foot diorama depicting Ste. Genevieve as it appeared in 1832—meticulously researched by resident historian Jim Baker and hand-crafted by internationally acclaimed diorama builder Pruneau, who Sheperd Paine (arguably the best-known figure in the genre) once called “the Cecil B. DeMille of diorama builders.” The gift shop stocks excellent selections of Ste. Genevieve merchandise, books, maps, and National Park Service materials. Knowledgeable NPS Rangers staff the center, a Junior Ranger program welcomes families, and admission is completely free. One visitor summed it up perfectly: “Fantastic National Park Service visitor center. Rangers are excellent, very friendly, helpful, and nice. Lots to do and see. Very lovely community.” Lewis Pruneau’s 1832 Diorama: The Crown Read more…