High Desert Museum
Explore, Discover, Get Closer!
Encounter wild eagles, owls, otters, bobcat, lynx, porcupines and other High Desert animals in natural habitats. Meet stagecoach drivers, pioneers, and others from the American frontier. Experience Native American and Western art and culture through fun and interactive exhibits.
Leave with a lifelong learning experience unlike any other, closer than you think.
Mission
Through exhibits, wildlife, and living history, High Desert Museum creates learning experiences to help audiences discover their connection to the past, their role in the present, and their responsibility to the future.
Purpose
To enable a deeper understanding of the region's arts, culture, history and natural sciences through the presentation and interpretation of visual art exhibits, historical artifacts, living history performances and wildlife encounters.
Living History
Living History at High Desert Museum
You could read about the history of the High Desert, but why not live it at the High Desert Museum?
Experience the Spirit of the West.
Stroll through 100 years of High Desert History in the Hall of Exploration and Settlement. Along the way meet Hannah Perkins, who is heading overland to Oregon across the bleak Black Rock Desert, then stop by the mining town of Silver City, Idaho and meet the Wells Fargo Express agent, Cad Iler, and learn about what it really takes to make a living in a boomtown. Experience changes daily.
Head Outside to the 1904 Miller Family Ranch and Sawmill
The year is 1904. The Miller family - characters portrayed live along with their guests - are ranchers. Ranch hand William Thomas helps Mary Louise Miller maintain the homestead while her husband, Clay Miller, tends Hereford cattle on the open range.
The Millers recently joined other homesteaders to buy a used sawmill from the U.S. Army. Now they can mill timber for barns, sheds, worker bunkhouses and other projects instead of buying lumber from distant mills.
Stop by our ranch and sawmill and chat with the Millers and others from the year 1904 as you help with watering the garden, washing the laundry, cross-cut sawing and working at the mill! In the winter gather round the stove and hear stories about settling Bend and Central Oregon.
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