Museums - Antelope Valley Indian Museum State Historic Park

Built in the 1920s among towering rock formations in the Mojave Desert, this museum is an eclectic folk art structure that exhibits and interprets a large collection of unique artifacts, with a focus on the prehistoric and contemporary American Indian cultures of the western Great Basin, California, and the Southwest. Founder Howard Arden Edwards was an ardent admirer of American Indian cultures and had amassed a sizeable collection of artifacts, which he exhibited in the building he constructed and lived in. In 1940, Edwards sold the property to Grace Oliver, who expanded the museum collections and converted the entire building to display the material. The State of California took control of the museum in 1979.
The museum’s collections include basketry, textiles (including a collection of Navajo rugs acquired in the 1920s and a Hopi wearing robe from the 1860s), pottery, and stone artifacts from the Southwest; cultural materials of various types from the Great Basin; and a variety of materials representing California American Indian groups. The largest single collection is from the Chumash and Tongva peoples of the California coast and Channel Islands. The museum’s catalogued holdings number approximately 7,500 artifacts. Approximately half of the collection is on display in an open exhibit.