Chicago History Museum reopening

Where: Chicago History Museum, 1601 N Clark St., 312-642-4600

When: Monday, March 4, 2021, Monday: Closed, Tuesday–Saturday: 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. We encourage visitors to purchase tickets in advance online. Tickets are available on-site as well, but each online purchase reduces person-to-person transactions and keeps us all safer.

Museum Changes

We have made some changes to our building, gallery spaces, and activities to protect visitors and staff, so your Museum visit may look and feel a little different.

Some interactive elements and exhibitions, including Sensing Chicago, are temporarily unavailable.
We ask that visitors use a stylus pen provided by the Museum on touchable screen interactive activities. You can also use them to press buttons in the elevator and to begin audio or videos in the galleries. Return the stylus at the end of your visit and we’ll sanitize it for the next guest.
Separate entrance and exit points to allow for a one-directional flow inside the Museum.
Plan ahead! Download your Museum map in advance of your visit.

In normal times the Chicago History Museum has a free day and a Chicago Brthday Party annually on March 4 but that appears to be canceled.

What’s new?

We may have been closed, but we’ve been quite busy! Check out what’s new on view.

Millions of Moments: The Chicago Sun-Times Photo Collection
Our brand new exhibition features a first look at highlights from our Chicago Sun-Times photograph collection, which has more than 5 million negatives spanning the 1940s to the early 2000s—one of the largest newspaper photograph collections ever acquired by an American museum.

Cityscapes
In our newly renovated Lester and Renée Crown Gallery, watch a dynamic display of large-scale panoramic images from the Museum’s collection chronicling Chicago’s remarkable growth from 1858 to 2019.