Interior Department

The Interior Department's 62-year-old museum is artistic, and definitely undervisited. During our visit the museum was displaying Adriel Heisey's aerial photographs of Navajo country taken from his homemade ultralight craft and Kenji Kawana's stunning black-and-white portraits of the Navajo people. In the permanent collection are Edward S. Curtis' classic photographs of the Indians of the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone region and Charley Harper's clever wildlife art, which fuses graphic arts and commercial advertising.

The eight galleries that make up the museum have some old-style exhibits. For example, a telephone that illustrates a point about the use of minerals in common products was probably manufactured in the late 1950s. But the place has a New Deal quality-the museum was established by Secretary Harold L. Ickes-and retro 1930s miniature dioramas that portray classic scenes such as the Fort Union trading post on the Upper Missouri River (1835); Washburn-Dane expedition through Yellowstone (1870); Guthrie, Okla., land office (1889); Window Rock, Ariz., Navajo tribal capital (1938); Juneau, Alaska, gold mill (1935); and central Washington (1939).

Interior, wryly known as the "Department of Everything Else," displays the works of its various bureaus with such artifacts as Lyndon Johnson's cowboy hat and boots (National Park Service), woodcuts and other handicrafts from the Pacific Islands (Bureau of Insular Affairs), puppets used to feed condor chicks (Fish and Wildlife Service), and slices of concrete cores from Grand Coolie and Hoover dams (Bureau of Reclamation).

In addition to the exhibits, agency videos and interactive kiosks provide little-known facts. Did you know, for instance, that in honor of treaty obligations dating back to 1794, the U.S. government provides five League of Iroquois tribes an annual payment of muslin? Twenty-one historic murals are located throughout the Interior building, including Depression-era murals that celebrate scientific advances by African-Americans, Marian Anderson's historic Easter concert at the Lincoln Memorial and the Oklahoma land rush.

Interior Department Museum
Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
third Saturday of each month, 1-4 p.m.
18th and E St. N.W.
Washington (Farragut West subway stop)
(202) 208-4743
www.doi.gov/museum/museum/index.html