National Museum of Military Vehicles 2026

 Our good friends, Bob and Lynne McCrainie told us about an amazing museum that they had been to in Dubois, Wyoming.  It is the National Museum of Military Vehicles that displays over 500 restored military vehicles. It was built at a cost of $100 million dollars, all privately funded so that the government couldn't tell them what to do or how to do it.  

 

The vehicles have been immaculately restored and look brand new. Almost all of them still run.The museum also had many different firearm displays as well as numerous uniforms and equipment displays.

 There was a huge collection of firearms located inside a giant safe. 

It is absolutely incredible that the very first shot fired at the Battle of Bunker Hill came from this rifle and it is in beautiful condition!

This is a machine gun inside of a briefcase.  The trigger is in the handle of the briefcase and the bullets exit the side of the briefcase.  I am not sure this would really work because I don't see any way for the spent cartridges to be ejected.  It still looks cool and I bet they could make it work in the movies.

There were way too many firearms to show in this Blog and still leve room for the main event . . . . the vehicles. As we left the firearms vault, we moved into a large room and the vehicle display began.

There were a very large number of vehicles in this museum and all of them were beautifully restored. They looked brand new, even the tires on the wheeled vehicles 

and the treads on the tracked vehicles.  All of these vehicles were different models and I have no idea where they were able to find parts.

There was room after room of vehicles of all types, and it was interesting trying to imagine what the men that operated these vehicles must have gone through. Words can't really describe what we saw so I will let the pictures do the talking.

We got to the museum right when it opened at 9:30 in the morning. As we continued to examine all of the vehicles in the museum, we finally realized we were hungry and that it was already lunchtime. We left the museum and went next door to the conference center where they also had a very nice snack bar. Suzie got a little child size cheeseburger and I got a regular size hamburger and we were surprised at how expensive the final bill was. We got over it when we saw the amount of food that they served us and feel that we got a really good bang for our buck.

After our lunch, we continued our trek through the museum.  This was a full size model of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. It's amazing how small it was. The placard beside it says that they estimate that it killed 80,000 people but they're not sure on the count because they believe that many were vaporized.

This placard was next to a display of a German railroad cannon that was used against the Russians. This cannon fired a total of 48 rounds, and they are said to be the largest artillery rounds ever fired.  Doesn't look too impressive on the following picture.

 

This is a model of the artillery piece. It was so large that it had to be transported on double sets of railroad tracks and you can get a feel for how big it was by looking at the model trucks that are also displayed in this diorama.

 

This is what the projectile looks like that that gun fired.

These are examples of what the projectiles look like that were fired out of the 16 inch naval guns that were mounted on US battleships during World War II. (That is World War 2, not World War eleven) 

 

The displays just went on and on.

I keep repeating how beautifully restored each of these vehicles is and that is because they had one vehicle to compare to.

 

This is an M60-A1 main battle tank that is in absolutely like new condition, at least on the outside. This is what I trained on and served on for six years while I was in the California National Guard.

We finally got to the end of all of the vehicles inside of the museum and thought we were through. We were wrong and found that there were a whole bunch more waiting to be restored outside. They were all under a covered shed.

There were many more vehicles than we were able to share with you, but I think you probably get a feel for what it is that's located at the National Museum of Military Vehicles. It's too bad that this place is so far out in the sticks because if it was in a large metropolitan area, it would absolutely be a must see.  It's located way out in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, but if you're ever in the area of Yellowstone, you might deviate south  into Wyoming about 100 miles, and you will have a treat visiting this museum.

I will be starting on the next leg of our adventure soon.  Please feel free to share any of these chapters with anyone that you think might enjoy them.

Tom & Suzie