Historic Southwest Museum

Story

The Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington area of Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Autry National Center. Its collections deal mainly with Native Americans. However, it also has an extensive collection of pre-Hispanic, Spanish colonial, Latino, and Western American art and artifacts.Major collections include rooms devoted to 1) American Indians of the Great Plains, 2) American Indians of California, and 3) American Indians of the Northwest Coast.Public transportation is available, such as the Metro Gold Line, which stops down the hill from the museum at the Southwest Museum station. About a block from the Gold Line stop, there is an entrance on Museum Drive that opens to a long tunnel formerly filled with dioramas, since removed by the Autry Museum and stored in an undisclosed location. At the end of the tunnel, there is an elevator that ascends to the lower lobby of the Museum. Parking is available up the driveway in a large lot level with the upper section of the Museum with a spectacular view of the area.