From the Gold Rush to World War II to the rise of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area’s history is rich, varied, often problematic but never boring. Here are three museums devoted to chronicling regional history in the Bay that are worth exploring in 2025 and beyond.
Museum of the San Ramon Valley
Located inside a restored 1891 Southern Pacific Railroad depot, this museum chronicles the region’s history from mastodon fossils to Native American artifacts up to vintage farm equipment and household gadgets from the suburban era. Special exhibits have examined groovy ’60s culture in the valley and climate change’s effects on California wildflowers.
Once a year, the museum fills an 1889 schoolhouse with costumed third graders to teach them about the way education used to be – how to tie up horses, call your elders “ma’am” and “sir” and pretend to forget about smartphones.
Details: Open Tuesday-Sunday at 205 Railroad Ave., Danville. $5 adult admission, museumsrv.org
San Mateo County History Museum
Located inside a 1910 courthouse in Redwood City, with one of the largest stained-glass domes on the West Coast, this charming museum chronicles the history of the Peninsula with unique collections and interactive experiences.
There’s one exhibit on how the Ohlone people and settlers survived off natural bounty, from redwood forests to oyster beds. Another traces African-American history in California back to the 1780s. The show topics can be all over the map, but are invariably intriguing — from the Cow Palace’s celebrity-studded past to San Mateo’s crime and law enforcement to big-wave surfing at Maverick’s.
Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday at 2200 Broadway, Redwood City. $6 adult admission, historysmc.org
The Black Panther Party Museum
Oakland’s newest museum, run by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, is devoted to telling the “true story” of how and why the Black Panthers became a radical force beginning in the 1960s. A recent exhibit explored the Intercommunal Youth Institute in East Oakland, where party members in the 1970s and ’80s provided alternative education for young Black students in community building and political education. The collections include rare and intimate photos of Panther life and oral histories from prominent figures in the movement. And an ongoing public conversation series examines things like the role of “Comrade Sisters” in the party, contemporary fashion in Oakland and how Black Panther lessons of yesteryear can inform the future.
Details: Open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday (Monday and Tuesday by appointment) at 1427 Broadway, Oakland. Free, blackpantherpartymuseum.org