Blackhawk Car Museum in Danville

Blackhawk Car Museum

When I thought of fun places to take my kids, a car museum did not come up in my mind. Yet when we were invited to attend a tour with a group of kids at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, we agreed to go. My girls enjoy playing with trucks and wheeled toys as much as the next kid, but they aren’t nuts about cars and neither am I. I was therefore, very happily surprised how fun the Blackhawk tour really was.

Our docent was so knowledgeable, and also seemed to really love kids. The museum is beautiful. The cars are spotless and just gleam in their spotlights. Having my littlest one running around this place made me cringe, but our docent was relaxed and encouraging to the kids. She had great stories to tell about the cars, and pointed out some very interesting historical details. Then at the next car, she would ask the kids to look at it a moment, then tell her what they noticed so the kids had a chance to use what they had learned along the way during the tour. The docent did a superb job of keeping the kids engaged.

While anyone who visits the museum can join a docent led tour as part of their museum admission, I don’t know how the routine tours might vary from the one we got that was focused for children. If this is a place you’d like your kids to see, I think it would well be worth taking the extra step and getting a group of kids together and calling ahead to set up a tour special for children.

There was a lot of history in our tour, as well as some very strange looking prototype cars that never went in to production, and the kids loved them all.

Just outside the Blackhawk Museum there is a very pretty little shopping area that also has a small pond, and stream with ducks and a small playground. Luckily, we were not in a rush, so we spent some time there as well. It would have been hard to drag the kids away once they saw it, so you may want to factor this into your planning as well.

As of this writing, the Blackhawk Museum is included in the Discover and Go discounted museum pass program through a number of public libraries.