McKinley Presidential Library & Museum — Attraction in Canton

It's an awesome experience. President and Mrs. McKinley's tomb can be visited by all. The exhibits are really cool and provide an insight into science and Stark County in McKinley's time. It's a solid experience for all, even for those who aren't history buffs.

The mausoleum contains the remains of the President, the First Lady, and their two daughters. It is quiet inside, and unlike the rest of the museum, it can be visited free of charge.

It costs $13 to enter the museum for adults. There are three floors - the top floor contains the historical exhibit showing Stark County in the 1890s, the McKinleys in a recreated drawing room, Women At Work, and various others. Recreations of various Stark County establishments can be seen, including a doctor's office, a general store, and a fire station. There's even a model train set that depicts the railways of Ohio. The recreated drawing room even contains animatronics of William and Ida McKinley.

The middle floor contains a planetarium. The show, titled 'Cosmic Kids,' is (as the title suggests) mostly is meant for a younger audience. As I traveled to the site with my adult siblings, we did not see the show, but we did see some of the space and NASA-related artifacts outside it.

The bottom floor contains the science exhibit. Recreations of dinosaurs and fossils are here, along with animal displays (live animals such as snakes and rabbits are shown in their little biomes). Various displays to demonstrate scientific phenomena are present here, too. The gift shop is also located on this floor.

I would highly, highly recommend this site to anyone - like I said before, history buff or not, it's a must-see for anyone in the area. I applaud the volunteers and staff who keep the place running. Note that the site does not accept American...

I got $14 off my ticket by being and EBT cardholder. You have to retrieve this discount in person, you can’t do it online ahead of time. It’s quick and easy to purchase tickets at the door. If you’re mostly looking forward to the dinosaurs, this isn’t the place. Majority of it is fake replicas and I can only recall one being marked as a replica. I wish they marked all of the replicas as replicas/copies. Basically anything that isn’t behind glass is a replica. Even though the Dunkleosteus is behind glass, the placard states it’s a copy. That aside, the interactive kids area is really cool that is similar to the OH WOW! Youngstown Ohio center, lots of STEM stuff. They have quite a few live reptiles and small fuzzy/feathered critters but their enclosures are REALLY small :/ that is very sad to me. I was not expecting that many live animals. The McKinley and Ida section is nice except I wish you could get closer to the household items around the animatronics. Note, They do NOT have any of Ida’s dresses yet as far as I know. There is a donation box for the museum to retrieve the dresses if you’d like to donate. They however DO have her crown, some shoes, little accessories. Don’t waste too much time in the first room on the second floor, it’s quite boring and I will note some of the descriptor papers are very hard to see or even find at all. Some things don’t even have a label. So keep an eye out because it might be hiding down below something in an inconspicuous area if you’re trying to figure out what an artifact is. Staff very nice. Two great restrooms. The gift shop is so cute and welcoming, highly recommend the Nancy’s Confections fudge cups, they taste like as they say they...

Considering that just a few hours north, President Gerald Ford has an entire floor dedicated to his life, filled with eloquent markers along the way, each one illuminating the presidency, the White House, and the process of American governance, what exists for William McKinley is rather sparse on details or coherent storytelling. For example, over in Niles (where McKinley was born and where a couple of the pictures below were taken), there's a public library, with his name on it, that has nothing to do with him, and an adjacent museum that features a whole bunch of random people, with only a spattering of information about McKinley, his wife, or his family. The same is true when you get to Canton, because a multi-floor building with his name on the outside only gets a sliver of a back wall with information (or artifacts) about McKinley, yet again, as it was in Niles. Other presidents from Ohio have been given much more consistent, cohesive, comprehensive museums (Harding and Hayes being among them, neither of whom were nearly as remarkable in their times as McKinley was in his). What makes this visit worthy is the tomb, where you can quietly enter--because there won't be a crowd--whisper your eulogy in an echoing dome, and feel that you've corresponded, in some ethereal way, with a...