20 Ways to Explore the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, PA

A highlight of our family’s recent visit to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was our morning at the Senator John Heinz History Center. We LOVED this engaging history museum that celebrates the vibrant history of Western Pennsylvania (Industries! Sports! Pop culture! Scientific advancements! Music1) This week, we’re sharing our favorite ways to explore the Heinz History center and why ALL ages will have fun at the museum was voted the #1 History Museum in America by the readers of USA Today.

The largest history museum in Pennsylvania and an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute, the Heinz History Center started as the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, opening in 1884 and focusing on preserving artifacts and memorabilia related to significant events in the Western Pennsylvania and America as a country. Throughout most of the 20th century, the society was housed in a building on Bigelow Boulevard. In 1996, the society opened the Senator John Heinz History Center in its current location in the popular Strip district of Pittsburgh, honoring Senator John Heinz, who had died in a plane crash in 1991. A 20 year member of the US House of Representatives and US Senator, Heinz was the great-grandson of H.J. Heinz, who founded the famous company. During the start of the 21st century, the museum expanded to what is now a six floor, 275,000 square foot museum with both permanent, rotating, and traveling exhibit space; meeting and function spaces; a retail shop and cafe; office spaces; and a full research library. 

The History Center also oversees the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum (housed inside the Center), the Fort Pitt Museum (one mile from the Center), and the Meadowcroft Rockshelter Historic Village (about an hour west of the Center). 

Travel Tips:

20 Ways to Have Fun at the Heinz History Center

1. Take the stairs, and pick up a SmartSteps strip on the first floor. Stop on each floor to emboss a unique seal on the strip. Return the completed strip to the Museum Shop before you leave for a cute souvenir. Be sure to check out the fun health related and Pittsburgh themed trivia displayed in the stairwells.
2. Hop aboard Pittsburgh Streetcar #1724 in the Great Hall. Sit inside the 1988 decommissioned street and see the seat design and advertisements of the 20th century.
3. Peek inside some of the unique vehicles on display in the Great Hall: a 1936 Ford deluxe sedan, a restored 1978 Heinz Hitch (used in parades and festivals), a 1919 fire engine, and the world’s oldest Jeep (circa 1940, on loan from the Smithsonian). Little kids can also hop inside a Kennywood “Racer” car from the 1927 roller coaster.
4. Slide down the Liberty Tube slide in Kidsburgh, an exhibit designed for the preschool crowd. Located above the Café, Kidsburgh also has games and puzzles, a replica deli and cow milking play stations, and an interactive model of the city of Pittsburgh for kids to design their own buildings.
5.  Have kids complete a History by You booklet inside the Hidden History exhibit (special one, short term). The new exhibit, opened in the spring of 2025, includes a wide variety of artifacts from the museum’s vast collection, including sports memorabilia, 19th and 20th clothing, a 1955 pram, 1895 Brougham carriage, a collection of miniatures, and parts of an infamous ride of the Kennywood amusement park. Note: this special exhibit is on display until October 2025.

6. Test your local sports knowledge in the massive, two floor Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum: Start in the replica locker room to check out the uniforms and equipment of teams and local legends, tag the replica Steelers “Men of Steel” sign for good luck, debate whether activities such as swimming and mountain climbing are considered sports, sit inside a miniature speed boat, use a magnifying glass to study the make up of a golf ball, try your skills on a putting green, and learn all about the storied history of the Oakmont Country Club, home of the 2025 US Open. Kids will definitely want to spend a lot of time exploring this exhibit. 
7. Listen to popular music and news and television clips from 1956 in a replica kitchen and living room display, as well as the music of jazz musicians such as Mary Lou Williams and George Benson in a replica of the Crawford Grill, a popular Pittsburgh Jazz Club that opened in the 1930s, in the Tradition of Innovation exhibit.
8. Use an interactive video to “interview” George Westinghouse about his rivalry with Thomas Edison and inventions such as the railway air brake and the first voice animated robot in the Pittsburgh: A Tradition of Innovation exhibit.
9. Learn about the various local unions in Pittsburgh by flipping the lids of replica lunchboxes and see displays of union workers’ uniforms and equipment in the Pittsburgh: A Tradition of Innovations exhibit. 
10. Use massive blue foam blocks to create your own house, neighborhood, bridge, or replica Pittsburgh inside the Engineering Playground in the Discovery Place exhibit. Discovery Place also has interactive stations for each step of innovation: observe, generate new ideas, tinker and explore, create and build, test and modify, refine and produce, and launch and use. 

11. Weight various foods and see how much exercise it takes to burn off the calories in the Sports and the Body exhibit inside the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum.
12. Try for a “hat trick” in a bean bag toss game in the Kassling Family Gallery feature about the Penguins, the NFL team with the most Stanley Cup wins. 
13. Pose next to a 11 foot tower of more than 400 Heinz ketchup bottles and learn all about the HJ Heinz Company, which was founded in 1869 in Pittsburgh, in the Heinz exhibit. There’s also a chronological display of Heinz bottles dating back 150 years, a family tree of Heinz family lineage, tv ads of Heinz products, and tons of other company marketing products. 
14. Listen to a recitation of local activist and writer Martin R. Delany’s 1850 speech in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 in the From Slavery to Freedom exhibit. From 1525 through 1867 European slave ships transported more than 12 million African men, women, and children to the Americans. The exhibit tells the story of those voyages, continuing with forced labor on plantations in America, the Underground Railroad that passed through Pittsburgh, and the fight for Civil Rights in the 20th century.
15. Learn about Pittsburgh’s influence in the glass blowing industry in the Glass: Shattering Notions exhibit. In the late 19th century, Pittsburgh was the glass making capital of America, with over 100 glass factories in the Pittsburgh region of Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh even hosted the national trade show for glass from 1880 through the 1950s. The exhibit includes a collection of glass animals, a giant piece of glass cullet, and a Fry FOVAL lamp, one of only a few still intact.

16. See the original set from the classic television show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood exhibit. Fred Rogers, a native “Yinzer”, taped his popular children’s show in Pittsburgh. The exhibit includes the iconic living room, King Friday XIII’s Castle, and the largest collection of items from the set (puppets! The famous red sweater! The tricycle!)
17. Peek inside the Mount Making Lab near the Visible Storage exhibit to see museum staff making mounts to display artifacts. The museum only displays about 15% of the one million items in its permanent collection, but visitors are able to see more in the Visible Storage exhibit.
18. Choose a favorite outfit from some of the collections on display in the Visible Storage exhibit; there’s everything from a 1920s flapper’s outfit to Civil War uniforms and women’s bonnets. Other popular collections include children’s toys, Presidential china from the Lenox Company, and automobiles. 
19. Watch video reenactments from the French and Indian War from the perspectives of the French, British, and Native Americans in the Clash of Empires exhibit, which also showcases artifacts from the war and what they were used for. 
20. Peek inside the 6th floor Archive Library, open Wednesday through Saturdays for research and further study. There are over 700,000 photographs, books, magazines, and documents that visitors can explore.

Looking for other adventures in Pittsburgh? See our feature of the Carnegie Science Center, the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Frick Pittsburgh Museums and Gardens, our tour of Acrisure Stadium, our feature of the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium, and full City Guide here. And follow along on our adventures on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Disclosure: Our family was given a media pass to explore the museum; all opinions expressed are my own.