Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee (must see)

The Milwaukee Public Museum was chartered in 1882 and opened to the public in 1884; it is a non-profit organization operated by the Milwaukee Public Museum, Inc. Milwaukee Public Museum has three floors of exhibits and the first IMAX Theater in Wisconsin. Admission is free to residents of Milwaukee County on Mondays and to Milwaukee County jurors at all times. The current museum president is Jay Williams. The museum hosts about one million visitors each year.

Although it was officially chartered in 1882, its existence reaches back to 1851, to the founding of the German-English Academy in Milwaukee. The Academy's principal, Peter Engelmann encouraged student field trips, many of which collected various specimens - organic, geological and archaeological in nature - which were kept at the Academy. Construction on the building currently housing the museum was begun in 1960 and completed in 1962. The new site was a block north of the old Museum-Library building, which continued to house exhibits until 1966.

In 2006, charges were filed against former museum chief financial officer Terry Gaouette, following the revelation that the museum was several million dollars in the red, a fact that allegedly had been hidden for years via illegal money transfers. Gaouette pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of falsifying a financial report, and his CPA license was restored in 2010. The Milwaukee Public Museum houses both permanent and traveling exhibits. In 2010 the Milwaukee Public Museum hosted Mummies of the World. The exhibit was the largest temporary exhibit and housed over 150 human mummies.