Museum & Exhibits

The National Buffalo Museum is a 6000 square foot facility housed in a rustic log building at the Frontier Village in Jamestown, North Dakota. The Museum collection portrays the cultural and natural history of bison and the Great Plains, from prehistoric times to the present, through displays of artifacts and artwork. Paintings, sculpture, and Native American art are prominently featured, including works by many local artists.
The museum features a history room, children’s room, white buffalo room, buffalo viewing deck, main gallery, video room, antique gun room, and gift shop. The museum is open year round with hours changing between summer, fall, spring and winter. A nominal admission is charged to go through the museum, however the gift shop and tourist information is free of charge.

In 2002, the museum added to its collection a cast of a skull from a giant bison, Bison latifrons. Giant bison inhabited North Dakota during the last Ice age at the same time that mammoths and mastodons lived here. This animal had a horn span of approximately 7 feet and was radiocarbon dated to be 47,500 years old. This specimen, the only Giant Bison skull ever found in North Dakota, was discovered by Kent Pelton of Watford City on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers administered land within the Fort Berthold Reservation near New Town. The original skull is located at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck North Dakota.

The museum is currently finishing a commemorative Lewis and Clark exhibit in the main gallery. The exhibit will portray how the bison helped Lewis and Clark survive, as well as the uses of the bison by the Native Americans, and also showcase some of the other plants and animals Lewis and Clark encountered in North Dakota. Other exhibit changes will occur in the museum throughout the winter. A Grand Opening of the Lewis and Clark exhibit, as well as, the other changes in the museum is tentatively planned for Memorial Day weekend 2004.
Check the events calendar for specific dates on temporary summer exhibits, grand openings and other museum news.

Museum Hours:
Memorial Day to Labor Day
9 am – 8 pm daily

Tuesday after Labor Day until October 31st & May 1st until Memorial Day
Monday – Friday 9 am – 5 pm
Saturday 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 12 pm – 5 pm

November 1st until April 30th
Monday – Friday 9 am – 5 pm
Saturday 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday Closed

Admission**

• Adults $5.00
• Seniors/AAA Members $4.00
• Families (mom, dad, and minor children) $10.00
• Students (age 7 – 18) $1.00
• Children (6 and under) Free
• Group Rate $75.00
  (15 or more adults, 19 or more seniors)

** Admissions charges are subject to change without notification.