MUSEUM & CULTURE
Museum of Military History
Osceola County · Central Florida
A volunteer-run military museum on the Kissimmee tourist strip, built by veterans out of a tent and now holding 9,000 square feet of exhibits.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
The museum began around 2004 when Jim and Jerry Kervin and other veterans set up a few exhibits under a tent to keep military artifacts from being scattered. It moved into mall space, and in 2012 into its own 10,000-square-foot building at 5210 West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway. About 9,000 square feet of that is exhibit floor. Coverage runs from the Civil War through the two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and the conflicts since, laid out as static displays of equipment, uniforms and personal items, with separate exhibits on recent fighting. What makes it different from a larger institution is who is standing in the room. It is run by volunteers and paid for by donations, with veterans on the floor who served in the wars the cases describe, so a question gets a firsthand answer rather than a label. Interns from Valencia College help run it. It opens Tuesday through Sunday, ten in the morning to six, and closes Mondays
Keep comparing