The visitor experience at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum includes both indoor and outdoor exhibit spaces. Our Visitor Center houses the museum’s historic collection and an interactive exhibit. Outdoor exhibits are located across the site’s 10-acre campus and include a re-created lumber camp, an operable circular sawmill and birch still, a Shay locomotive and Barnhart Log Loader, an original cabin built by enrollees in the Civil Conservation Corp, the 10×20 ft Eastern Loggers model railroad display, and a 500 square-foot cabin built by outdoor enthusiasts Bob and Dotty Webber. We encourage visitors to be able to spend at least 90 minutes to adequately experience all that the museum has to offer. In periods of inclement weather (such as snow and ice), certain outdoor exhibits might be limited or closed. Please call ahead (814) 435-2652 to inquire about weather-related exhibit closures.
Map of the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum campus. A digital copy of our museum visitor guide brochure is available HERE.
Visiting & Parking
The museum is situated in a rural area that is not served by public transportation or walking routes. A private lot in front of the Visitor Center provides free automobile and bus parking for approximately 100 vehicles. The parking lot is paved and includes five spaces near the Visitor Center entrance reserved for disabled parking.
Service Animals & Pets
Only service animals are allowed inside museum buildings. Well-behaved pets on a leash are allowed anywhere outside the Visitor Center on the museum grounds. Please clean-up all pet waste and properly dispose of it.
Admissions & Restrooms
Admissions to the museum can be purchased inside the Visitor Center. The main entrance to the Visitor Center building brings guests into a lower-level lobby, where they can either ascend a flight of 19 stairs or take a 6-person elevator up to the main floor of the building. The admission desk, restrooms, gift shop, and exhibit gallery are all located on this floor.
Our helpful and friendly staff will welcome and orient visitors from the museum admissions and information desk, just outside the upper elevator door and near the top of the stairs. Per-person admission rates and discounts vary, so museum personnel will be glad to help determine which rates are appropriate for each visitor.
There is a single wheelchair available at no cost for any museum visitor that would like to use it within the Visitor Center building. Inquiries can be made at the admission desk.
Handicap-accessible restrooms and water fountains are located down the hallway, 50 ft from the admission desk. These are the only public restrooms and water fountains available on-site. Both the men’s and women’s restrooms contain fold-down baby changing stations. Accommodations for nursing mothers are available upon request. For those visitors needing a “quiet” space, the staff at the museum admissions and information desk can assist upon request.
Touring Site & Accessibility
The Visitor Center houses the museum’s main exhibit: Challenges and Choices in Pennsylvania’s Forests. This interactive exhibit includes several hands-on activities offering tactile opportunities for visitors. A 15-minute orientation video is shown within the Visitor Center, and our museum store sells a variety of locally made merchandise. In addition to the main indoor exhibit, there are sixteen outdoor exhibit spaces which are spread across an approximately 10-acre museum campus.
Upon checking in, guests will receive a paper visitor guide brochure, which includes a map of the site and a variety of information about the exhibits. The typical visitor experience is self-guided, utilizing the map and information contained in the brochure.
Bench seating is available around the admissions desk and throughout the main exhibit in the Visitor Center, as well as at several other locations outside on the museum grounds.
When touring the museum grounds, visitors will be required to traverse a variety of surfaces, including black-topped walkways, wooden boardwalks, gravel paths and roads, and grassy lawn areas. Given the hilly landscape surrounding the museum, there is more than 100 ft of elevation change between the lowest and highest exhibit spaces on-site. Wooden stairs and/or earthen switchback walking paths are used to navigate this elevation change; visitors are also able to use their vehicles to drive and park closer to several exhibits that are more distant from the Visitor Center (inquire at admission desk for more information). While there are numerous ramps and other accommodations present along the exterior tour route, visitors using a wheelchair or those with other limitations to their mobility may find access to some spaces on the museum grounds challenging. Exterior surfaces can become slippery during inclement weather such as rain, snow, and very cold temperatures, so please use extreme caution while visiting during these conditions.
There are a few areas within the exterior exhibit spaces that can be accessed only by climbing a flight of stairs. Special exhibit guides detailing in words and pictures what is included in these harder to reach spaces are presented in 3-ring binders located near to the lower level of each set of stairs. Staff at the museum admission and information desk will be happy to explain and clarify accessibility solutions for the exterior exhibit spaces.
Special Accommodations
Guests requiring special accommodation (i.e. visual descriptive services, sensory friendly conditions, etc.) are strongly encouraged to contact the museum well in advance of the time of their planned visit. If you have any questions about accessibility at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum, please call the museum at (814) 435-2652 or ask our guest services staff in-person.
Food & Beverages
The museum gift shop sells water, soda, and snacks, but on a day-to- day basis (outside of periodic special events) there is nowhere to purchase a meal on-site. Food and drink are not allowed inside the main exhibit gallery within the Visitor Center. Visitors are welcome to enjoy food and drink brought with them at one of the numerous outdoor picnic tables around the museum campus.
Smoking & Alcohol
The museum is a smoke free site. This applies to all indoor and outdoor spaces. Alcoholic beverages are prohibited (unless served as part of an approved site activity).
