Oklahoma History Center

The History Center's five permanent galleries are organized chronologically and thematically. The Oklahoma Land galleries cover the prehistoric era through the 19th century, including Plains and Woodlands Native nations before European contact, the Spanish and French colonial periods, the early American territorial era, the Indian Removal of the 1830s, and the Civil War in Indian Territory. These galleries provide essential context for understanding why Oklahoma's modern demographic and political map looks the way it does.

The Oklahoma Faces gallery focuses on the people who shaped Oklahoma — political leaders, business figures, cultural icons, ordinary citizens — through portraits, biographical exhibits, and oral history interviews. Featured figures range from Will Rogers (the Cherokee-Oklahoma humorist who became one of the most famous Americans of the 1920s and 1930s) through Woody Guthrie, Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, and contemporary Oklahomans.

The Crossroads of Commerce gallery is particularly relevant to Route 66 travelers — it covers Oklahoma's role as a transportation crossroads, from the historic Chisholm Trail cattle drive era through the railroads of the late 19th century, Route 66 from 1926 onward, and the modern Interstate 40 corridor. The gallery includes a substantial Route 66 section with vintage gas station signs, an early motel sign collection, photographs of Oklahoma's surviving Route 66 landmarks, and interpretive material on the highway's economic role in mid-20th-century Oklahoma.

The Devon Big Bang gallery — named for Devon Energy, the Oklahoma City–based oil and gas company that funded its construction — is the History Center's most visually striking exhibition and one of the better single-gallery oil-and-gas explanations in any American museum. The gallery is built around a giant 3D model of Oklahoma's subsurface geology that walks visitors through how Oklahoma's oil and gas deposits formed across hundreds of millions of years and how 20th-century drilling technology made them accessible.

Interactive exhibits throughout the gallery let visitors operate a simulated drilling rig, explore the geology of specific Oklahoma oil fields (the Glenpool, Cushing, Seminole, and Oklahoma City Field discoveries that drove the state's early-20th-century oil boom), and trace the careers of major Oklahoma oil families including the Phillips (Phillips Petroleum), the Kerrs (Kerr-McGee), the Skellys (Skelly Oil), and the Phillips brothers' competitors and contemporaries.

For Route 66 visitors, the Devon Big Bang gallery directly connects two essential Oklahoma stories: the oil money that funded the construction of much of Tulsa's Art Deco downtown architecture, and the role of Route 66 in connecting Oklahoma's oil-boom cities to the rest of the United States. The gallery makes the underlying historical logic — Oklahoma oil + federal highway investment = Tulsa Art Deco + Route 66 — directly visible.

The History Center campus extends well beyond the main museum building. The Red River Journey outdoor exhibit area is a 5-acre landscape installation that traces the geography of the Red River — the river that forms much of Oklahoma's southern border with Texas — and the cultural communities (Comanche, Caddo, Wichita, and others) that have lived along its banks. The exhibit includes recreated traditional buildings, ethnobotanical plantings, and interpretive signage; admission is included with the History Center ticket and most visits to the History Center include a 30-45 minute walk through Red River Journey.

Adjacent to the History Center is the Oklahoma State Capitol, one of only a handful of state capitols in the United States with an active oil derrick on its grounds. The derrick — formally called the Capitol Site #1 — operates on a working oil well that has been producing oil from beneath the Capitol building since 1942. Free 30-minute guided tours of the Capitol's interior are available weekdays at 9am, 11am, 1pm, and 3pm; the Capitol is genuinely worth the visit for the rotunda's installed art and the Hall of Governors.

The Oklahoma Hall of Fame on the grounds is a smaller separately-funded institution that honors notable Oklahomans across every field — from arts and entertainment through business, athletics, military service, and political leadership. Inductees include Will Rogers, Mickey Mantle, Bob Wills, Patrick Mahomes, and dozens of others. Admission is included with the History Center ticket.

The History Center is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm, closed Sundays and Mondays. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for students and seniors, $5 for children 6-18, and free for children 5 and under. Active military and veterans receive free admission. The History Center is wheelchair-accessible throughout; complimentary wheelchairs are available at the entrance.

Plan 2.5 to 3 hours for a thorough first-time visit (museum interior plus the Red River Journey outdoor area). Add another 60-90 minutes if you combine with a State Capitol tour next door. Most visitors find the combined History Center plus Capitol experience genuinely substantial — half a day at minimum, easily a full day for visitors interested in Oklahoma history.

Free parking is available in the History Center's own large surface lot. The History Center is located in the State Capitol complex about 15 minutes drive north of downtown Oklahoma City via I-235 or Lincoln Boulevard. Combining a History Center visit with the Capitol tour is the natural plan; both are next to each other and can be visited on foot once you've parked. The Hall of Fame and Red River Journey outdoor exhibits are part of the same campus and require no additional travel.