Our Mission Statement

The mission of the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum is to bring about a better understanding and appreciation by the community of its history and cultural heritage of mining, ranching, skiing, and other activities which have been indigenous to the East River Valley, particularly Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte.

About Museum Exhibits

Our largest exhibit is our historic building, Tony’s Conoco. Tony’s closed in 1996 and was the longest running business in Crested Butte, beginning as a blacksmith shop in 1883 and later becoming a garage and hardware store. All items in the front portion of the Museum are the exact items that were for sale throughout the years of Tony’s Conoco, serving as a memorial to a beloved local hang out.

The Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum focuses its exhibits on activities which have been indigenous to the East River Valley, such as mining, ranching and skiing.

We have a large train diorama depicting the town of Crested Butte in the 1920’s. The train will take several trips around the town for just a quarter!

Our Home Life exhibit features appliances and musical instruments as well as a Gramophone. We have two mannequin cases with historic clothing that are updated seasonally.

Our ski exhibit has an authentic Crested Butte Mountain Resort Gondola, wonderfully restored from the early 1960’s, as well as many historic wooden and metal edge skis.

Our life size mining exhibit allows visitors to get a feel for the working conditions for early coal miners, complete with a tunnel, a keeper canary and a surprise.

The Museum also contains exhibits on Historic Hardware, Denver Rio Grande Railroad, Geology, Time Lines, History of Skiing and the Crested Butte Mountain Resort, Veterans, Children’s Experience, Flauschink, Historic Textiles and the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.