Virginia Museum of History & Culture

The home of the Virginia Historical Society, founded in 1831, and the state's attempt to tell four centuries of its own story in one building — from the Powhatan world before contact through Jamestown, slavery, the Revolution, the Civil War, Jim Crow and the civil rights era to the present.

A major renovation reopened the galleries in 2022 with a considerably more candid framing than the institution once had; recent exhibitions on free Black Virginians before emancipation are a fair indication of the current direction. The permanent Story of Virginia gallery is the core, supported by an enormous research library and manuscript collection, and by the Story of Virginia murals painted in the 1920s.

Practical: general admission is free, open daily, with some special exhibitions ticketed. It stands directly across Arthur Ashe Boulevard from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, so the two pair naturally into a half day — and between them they make the museum district the obvious fallback when the weather turns.