Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles — Attraction in Lexington

My wife and I passed through the area during our cross-country drive, and seeing as I'm active duty military I thought this would be a great place to stop by and take a look at some history.

We were very disappointed: we arrived at 3:50 PM, and despite their own website stating that they re-opened from COVID-19 closures and are open daily until 5:00 PM, we were rudely told to go away. I was met with a cranky old man yelling "WE'RE CLOSED!" when I came to the front door. I asked if I could at least walk around the grounds and see some of the tanks up close, to which he replied "NO!" and promptly told me to "go away" (his words, not mine). Bewildered, I came back to the car and my wife went up tried talking to him. His response? Greeting her with "What do you want??" before blurting out "Go away, we're closed!"

No explanation given. No "I'm sorry we're closing early today today". Just incredibly rude beratement. If they were closing early, we would understand! They should have just said so instead of treating us like we were doing something wrong for showing up during their business hours (Google, their own website, and THE SIGN ON THE FRONT DOOR all say they close at 5 PM). We're sorry for showing an interest in your museum? Sheesh! We drove two hours to come see this, but instead we got treated like children.

My advice to anyone interested in this place: go...much earlier? They aren't holding to the hours posted on their own website, and if you show up when they're closing you're going to get VERY rude...

My teenage son is very interested in tanks. We take his older brother to local train museums all the time, so I thought we'd see if there were any tank museums nearby. The closest was the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles, which was a 3 hour drive. So we packed a cooler and made a day trip out to Lexington!

The museum has free entry which is extremely rare these days. They do have a donation box so you can contribute to keeping the museum running if you'd like. A great guy named Bill greeted us at the entrance and gave us a quick rundown of where we could find different vehicle types.

The amount of military gear and vehicles in the museum is astounding. They have a huge collection with a lot of great information. There are two vehicles that guests are allowed to climb in--a helicopter and a tank. Outside there are more vehicles which we were given permission to sit on for pictures.

Overall, this is a great museum and it was well worth the 6 hour drive to make...

We saw signs for this museum while on a road trip to Iowa for a family function. Being an avid enthusiast of all things aircraft and armor, I had to stop and drag my mom around here for an hour. For being in a smallish town in the middle of nowhere, they have a pretty impressive collection of vehicles, both inside and outside. These include a Bradley fighting vehicle, Sherman tank, Kubelwagen, Schwimmwagen, and the classic WW2 Jeep, as well as many others. They even have three UH-1 Hueys inside. Three! In addition, there is a large collection of various projectiles, uniforms and other equipment, and even a good amount of models and dioramas of various equipment and eras. Staff was knowledgeable and friendly, and reminded me of that crusty Jeep character in the movie "Cars". So there's some character to be found here as well. If you are into this stuff, I'd say check it out if you have the time. Free admission but they do ask for a donation. Well worth it...