My second stop during the great Tuesday tour was the Naranjo Museum of Natural History in Lufkin, Texas. Located just off the highway, this small museum hosts a wide range of little exhibits, from a diorama timeline of prehistory to real dinosaur bones to anthropological artifacts to a model of the space shuttle. A lot of history is packed into this museum, not always with a clear direction or purpose. All of these items are part of a permanent collection owned by Dr. Neal Naranjo, so it may be more helpful to think of this as curated items related to his personal interests, rather than a "traditional" museum.
I was the first visitor of the day, although a children's summer camp was happening at the museum at the same time. The staff person at the desk was friendly and informative, providing a laminated map and explaining how the museum worked.
The main attraction at the museum are the enormous dinosaur skeletons. The music and moving dinosaur statues are a lot of fun. It's unclear how many of the bones in the skeletons are genuine fossils and how many are reproduction. Fossil cases beneath the diorama timeline are genuine, and I wish those had been displayed at a better height and with brighter lighting.
The diagram and skeleton combination continues as far as the modern day. Taxidermized local animals are added to the mix, with some stuffed better than others. I was personally disappointed that the Smilodon skeleton was a small model, but most people do not have my obsession with saber-toothed tigers and would not notice the incorrect scale.
The rest of the museum attempts to be encyclopedic on a small scale. The most successful part of this section was the mini-exhibit on space exploration, a mini Johnson Space Center. A model space shuttle twirled in front of a display about the evolution of space food. Also included in this area was smaller replica of the Mars Curiosity rover standing beside a dummy created to look like Rick Husband, an astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Although the uniform worn by the dummy did indeed belong to Rick Husband, I personally would have opted for a blank face.
A refurbished safe holds a range of jewelry and previous stones. The arrangement reminded me of Johnson's Rock Shop. The most notable object is a necklace that belonged to the British imperialist author Rudyard Kipling, whose inclusion feels somewhat in the same line as the Rick Husbands dummy in the space exhibit.
A long display case contains a combination of artifacts and replicas from Ancient Egypt, Vikings, Maya, and modern Native American groups. Inevitably, this space also has a Texas barbed wire collection, similar to one I saw at the Polk County Museum a few weeks ago.
Overall, the museum was a fun experience. Because of the easily digestible nature of the signage, colorful dioramas, interactive exhibits, and variety of materials, the museum is an ideal stop for local families and school groups, although the giftshop was somewhat underwhelming. The walkways through the museum are wide and flat, with the only narrow section being the doorway to the jewelry room. The other precaution is that the museum is dimly lit, possibly as a special effect or to protect the artifacts, so people with poor night vision may want to bring a small flashlight.