History Museum at the Castle

We were visiting the Franklin Street Inn and drove in from Chicago, I was happy to find a HOUDINI exhibit! Great pics, videos and devices to try! Very cheap to get in also.

We decided to make the drive up to appleton from northern Ozaukee county to check out the houdini exhibit. The museum is located right on college avenue and parking a little tricky to maneuver as the signage wasn’t visible as we drove around the back side of the building. We came in through an adjoining lot and made our way to the building. The front enterance was under construction so we had to take the elevator enterance on the the west side of the building. There was only four exhibits available when we went and were really impressed by the neon sign exhibit. The room was jam packed with old neon signage, hands on and easy to follow info. Some museums I’ve been to have novels up and it’s hard to keep reading when you have more to see. Next we checked out the houdini exhibit. It did have a lot of hands on but some of the hands on was not working and one was completely missing. I did tw staff and they mentioned that it may have been pulled when students were in for a tour. The lower floor exhibit was very interesting. Local tools and trades and history. The last exhibit showed some photography but there was one item missing from the wall– seemed weird there was no sign stating where it had gone? Overall the price is fair for what you see. I highly recommend the neon exhibit if you can see it before it’s changed out!

Good for kids most exhibits are hands on.
The younger kids will be ok with the simpler Da Vinci machines replicas, but might have problems with most of the Houdini ones since they are a little more intricate/​involved. If you have a 5 – 10 year old this place is probably perfect for them. The local Appleton history installation on the lower floor was the best for me since it was more in depth with some stunning photographs, old cars, machinery and scene reproductions. Worth the $ 15 admission to kill an afternoon.

A great display of Houdinis work and you could try all the tricks yourself. The one floor is all Houdini, the second floor is all local history, the third floor is all Leanardo DiVinci. The DiVinci display also had several of the tools he created and yo