Austin, Texas: Museum of the Weird

Fiji mermaid!

We talked to a lady working at the museum who said they recently acquired a large collection of items and have plans to add on to the back of the museum to make room to display it.

The Museum of the Weird in downtown Austin will be having its grand re-opening beginning Friday, March 20th, following more than a month of renovation. This cabinet of curiosities has grown to about three times its original size when it was opened in the back of Lucky Lizard Curios & Gifts in 2007. Proprietors Steve and Veronica Busti created the museum in the back of their gift shop to keep the tradition of old time dime museums alive.

In addition to its collection of mummies, shrunken heads, giant live lizards and freak animals, the new museum will delve more into the paranormal, cryptozoology, and the unexplained, including a brand new Bigfoot exhibit (and soon to be hosting "Ghost Dinners").

During the month of May, Lucky Lizard Curios & Gifts in downtown Austin is celebrating the grand opening of 6th Street's newest attraction, the Museum of the Weird.

"It is an homage to the dime museums of American culture," curator and Lucky Lizard owner Steve Busti says. Originally introduced to the mass public by P.T. Barnum, dime museums were popular forms of entertainment (and pseudo-education) around the late 19th to early 20th century, and were also the birthplace of the sideshow.

Busti's museum includes such curiosities as a two-headed chicken, shrunken heads, and a fiji mermaid. Admission to see the freakiness is $3 ($1 for children under 12), free admission if you buy a poster.