Unusual museums in Washington, D.C.

Looking for unusual museums & collections in Washington, D.C.? These 8 are the genuinely strange ones — Surratt House Museum, NRA National Firearms Museum, National Museum of Civil War Medicine and more — each hand-vetted and sourced, not pulled from a top-ten list. Great for an unusual date, a weird afternoon, or showing a visitor the side of Washington, D.C. they'd never find on their own.

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Surratt House Museum The rifles, ammunition, and field glasses John Wilkes Booth grabbed mid-escape after shooting Lincoln were st… Clinton, MD
NRA National Firearms Museum 2,500 guns spanning seven centuries fill the NRA's headquarters building, including firearms owned by Theodor… Fairfax, VA
National Museum of Civil War Medicine Housed in a 19th-century building that doubled as a furniture maker's shop and undertaker's parlor during the… Frederick, MD
Dinosaur Land Over 50 hand-built fiberglass dinosaurs crowd two wooded acres off Route 340, some dating to the park's 1963… White Post, VA
Riversdale House Museum This Federal mansion was built 1801-1807 as a five-part ensemble for a Belgian merchant's daughter, Rosalie S… Riverdale Park, MD
Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum Clara Barton ran her "Missing Soldiers Office" out of a rented third-floor room here from 1865 to 1868, traci… Penn Quarter, DC
National Bonsai & Penjing Museum One tree in the Japanese pavilion, a white pine called the Yamaki Pine, has been in continuous bonsai trainin… Northeast DC — U.S. National Arboretum
Glenstone Museum — Alex Da Corte's Rubber Pencil Devil (Hell House) Inside Room 6 of the Pavilions sits a neon sculpture shaped like a house on fire — artist Alex Da Corte's 202… Potomac, MD