Museums and Historic Sites of Little Falls

Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Memorial Museum

The county's own museum sits on the bank of the Mississippi and is run by the Morrison County Historical Society. Established in 1975, it tells the story of Morrison County with a natural emphasis on the lumber era — the mills, the river, and the settlers who arrived with them. If you want the context behind everything else in town, start here. It pairs well with the town's lumber history.

Linden Hill Historic Estate

The men who ran the Pine Tree Lumber Company built where they worked. The neighboring mansions of Charles A. Weyerhaeuser and Richard "Drew" Musser stand on 1st Street SE along the Mississippi, preserved as Linden Hill and furnished with antiques and the families' original belongings. Touring the houses is the closest you can get to the daily life of the lumber money that built Little Falls. The estate also operates as an event and retreat venue.

Minnesota Fishing Museum

Minnesota takes fishing seriously enough to give it a museum, and it is in Little Falls. The non-profit Minnesota Fishing Museum & Hall of Fame preserves the state's freshwater angling heritage across more than 8,000 artifacts — rods, reels, lures, boats, and the stories that go with them. It began in 1998 in donated space in the historic Cass Gilbert Depot, later moved to West Broadway, and expanded in a 2006 remodel to more than 10,000 square feet.

The Charles Lindbergh House and Museum

The single most-visited historic site in the area gets its own full guide, but it belongs on any museum list: the 1906 boyhood home of aviator Charles Lindbergh, a National Historic Landmark run by the Minnesota Historical Society, with a visitor center, a documentary theater, and a Spirit of St. Louis cockpit mock-up. Read the full story in Charles Lindbergh and Little Falls.

Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum

Just north of Little Falls lies Camp Ripley, a large state military training reservation on the Mississippi, and with it the Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum — the state's most comprehensive collection of military artifacts and records, spanning uniforms, weapons, vehicles, aircraft, and tens of thousands of items from the Civil War to the present. The museum has expanded its public presence, including a Little Falls location; because access and hours have changed in recent years, confirm the current location and schedule on the museum's site before visiting.

The Cass Gilbert Depot

Little Falls has a small architectural claim to fame at its old railroad depot. It was designed early in the career of Cass Gilbert, the architect who later gave the country the Minnesota State Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court Building. The depot survives and now houses the Little Falls Area Chamber & Tourism — a practical first stop for maps and current event information, and a piece of history in its own right.

A walkable historic downtown

Beyond the individual sites, downtown Little Falls is itself listed as a National Historic District, and the Great River Arts Center anchors a local arts scene among the storefronts. Most of these places sit within a short distance of one another, which makes a museum day here genuinely walkable.