Great place to visit. They do a really great job presenting a very emotional and evocative portion…read moreof the history of the Cherokee people and the monumental injustices inflicted on them by the American government. Really enjoyed the visit.

A former classmate from high school, who happenes to be in the military, got so upset when I…read more"liked" a paper that stated US soldiers have and could again put US citizens in internment camps and we should be on guard. This classmate said the US has never locked up its own citizens and would never do such things; to say different would make me a conspiracy theorist. Errrrrr. WRONG. There's a forgotton Holocaust - an American tale. We all know about the Jewish internment camps in Germany and Poland, and the Japanese internment camps here in the USA during WWII, but how many people know of the internment camps for the people of the Five Civilizied Tribes during the 1830-40's right here in America? Unless you grew up in the south, or are part Native American, chances are, you don't know about the Trail of Tears and the death camps. Back in early April, my grandparents, now ex-husband and I drove down to Tahlequah to visit Tsa-La-Gi. It was so nice to go through the living history tour which has a replica village and then another replica town (post ancient Cherokee village) with a schoolhouse, church, etc. Because it wasn't summer and still really cold out, there weren't people cooking and playing games. Our tour guide demonstrated games, archery and a bunch of other cool stuff during the tour. He was really personable and funny. Inside there is both ancient and modern (1500's-1800's) Cherokee clothing, pottery, weapons, etc. I liked the pottery stamps that you could color in the museum (sorta like when you put a leaf under paper and color over it to get the impression.) Past the previously mentioned things in the back of the museum, I learned things I never knew. I always wondered why my Cherokee ancestors didn't put themselves on the 1900's Dawes Rolls - you have to be on it to be apart of the modern day tribes. My grandpa told me that if you were put on the rolls, you were basically a ward of the government. You had no property anymore or rights. You were basically no better off than a slave. You can't buy your freedom when the government has you by the neck. I learned more here as to why my ancestors hid out in the Ozarks rather than lose all the had to the Government. On the wall are the accounts of eye-witness accounts of people watching a soldier bayonette a pregnant lady who fell on the trail, of the diseases and starvation that were rampant both on the trail and in the camps. It was absolutely stomach turning. I took a picture of every single wall board with information on it. Horrific. This is definitely a place, just like the Holocaust museum in D.C., that people NEED to see. We must never get too careless or too delusional to think that this stuff doesn't or can't happen again by our very capable government. We can forgive but we won't foolishly forget or ignore what our own government has done to its own people. If you want an eye-opening history lesson, COME HERE.

BUT, The lower rating is because you won't notice until…read moreyou've already purchased tickets that the museum is geared towards younger children. My 10-year-old girl got bored pretty fast. The museum is maintained very well, nothing looks old worn or faded, everything is kept clean and bright.

The Amazeum is an interactive children's museum that can provide fun and learning for any age!…read moreAdmission is $14 for adults but children under 2 get in for free. We had 3 children under 2 in our group and were so pleased to find things they could enjoy at this age. They have two specific toddler play areas that are for children ages 2 and below, plus another section for children ages 6 and below. It was so nice having them play in these areas without getting overrun by bigger kids! You could easily spend all day in this museum because there are endless activities and things to see. The museum is very clean, well organized, and spacious. I can't wait to bring my daughter back in future years so she can enjoy even more aspects of the museum!

Beautiful day to visit this amazing place! My daughter and I took advantage of the opportunity to…read morecome to Tahlequah today and celebrate Native American Heritage month. Visiting the exhibits in the Cherokee National Museum are both heartbreaking (Trail Of Tears) and inspiring (all the rest ). We learned a lot of facts that even though I grew up in Tahlequah I did not know. Please please please take the time someday to make this memory a part of your life!

Worth the visit. Clean park, impressive exhibits and knowledgeable staff. You will definitely feel…read moreenriched if you take the time to read the exhibits and listen to the tour guides.

We stopped by on a time crunch and they were kind enough to give us a very quick tour! The cave is…read moreREALLY cool to see and don't forget to check out the gift shop (:

What an amazing cavern you can spend a couple hours in. Cory our tour guide was so nice and…read moreknowledgeable. He took the time to listen to questions and answer them. The cavern is well maintained and easy to tour through. Lots of minerals to look at, and amazing places to take pictures. If you're considering touring this, do yourself a favor and make the leap and go!

As a corrections officer this peaked my interest, so I decided to go with the whole family. Loved…read moreeverything about this old prison now museum, it was interesting, informative, kept the kids entertained and best of all it was all free. I definitely recommend checking it out.

I wish I could give this like a 3.5... It's not quite a 4 but not so much a 3 either…read more The entry fee is $5 and you walk in to a small little "gift shop" of shelves filled with books and local, handmade, and Cherokee gifts including marbles, pins that say "Osiyo" and books from Cherokee writers. The main exhibit is really about 2 rooms that are all open to each other. There are life size scale mannequins with "outlaw" and "prisoner" regalia, as it is a prison museum. There are a few interesting stories as well as a few interactive activities such as pulling the weight of a dumbell that would have been attached to a prisoner's leg. Outside there is a replica of the "gallows" and the space that the prisoners might have lived and worked. The museum doesn't take long at all to get through so if you were bringing a large group, consider doing a tour of multiple historic places in the area (and there are a few within walking distance). The museum is interesting but not exactly enough to keep you entertained for long, although, it's very specific. If I were in Tahlequah again, I would recommend touring but I would likely not drive a far distance to visit. Original Tip: $5 entry, takes about 30-40 minutes to go through at most

On Wednesday we drove to Tahlequah, the capital city of both the Cherokee Nation and the United…read moreKeetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. Their reservation spans 14 counties in Northeastern Oklahoma. In 1830, gold was discovered on Cherokee lands. The exact same year, not only were Cherokees legally prohibited from mining for gold on their own lands Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. In exchange for $5 million the Cherokee people would "exchange" their homelands for lands in Oklahoma. Not only were the people who signed the treaty on behalf of the Cherokee not elected officials of the tribe in any capacity, the US government never paid the money out, nor were the Cherokee given a seated representative in the US House of Representatives per the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. More than 100,000 Native Americans, including the Cherokees were forcibly removed from their homes in the Carolinas, Appalachia and Alabama. The Seminoles of Florida even went to war for 7 years against the US government to try to hold onto their land. People were hunted, killed and those who were captured were forced to march a thousand miles on a journey that became known as "The Trail of Tears" due to 4,000 people dying on the forced relocation march. After the Native Americans were forcibly removed, their land and gold mining rights were then given to wealthy white settlers in lotteries. This land became the massive plantations (corporate farms) of the slave-era. I've been to Tahlequah before but they tore down the original museum that I visited in favor of turning this courthouse into a museum. Personally, the trail of tears exhibit was a better exhibit at the former museum. It always stuck with me how they had eyewitness accounts of US soldiers bayonetting pregnant women on the trail. It's just evil.

What a powerful message of uniting people, ingenuity of language development, and preservation of…read moreNative American history! The gentleman was extremely knowledgeable with fascinating facts. It is immaculately clean and professional displayed. Bathrooms are spotless and clean. It is worth the time to stop and learn the history and embrace the culture of unity, academic acceleration, and dignitary level negotiation for the sake of evolving the quality of life for the people.

Nice little detour off I40. Great spot if you need to stretch your legs and have a meal. There is…read moreplenty of space to walk around and view the beautiful landscape and a part of history. A building has been built around Seqouyah's cabin to ensure It's continued survival. This cabin is a little out of the way so if you are in a time crunch I suggest you skip it but if you have time it is worth visiting this free piece of history.

This was actually my first trip out to the park and museum. It was very interesting to walk…read morethrough. We brought my family that was visiting from North and South Carolina to visit. They had sat down earlier in the week and decided this was one of the places they would enjoy visiting while they were here. Thank You to the staff for being so nice during the visit, it made for a wonderful experience and funny conversation. I would highly recommend for people to put this museum on their list to visit.

I would love to visit this submarine museum sometime knowing that I put my 10 dollars to a good…read morecause to help this be a museum among many others who also helped make this possible if I was to donate 10 dollars to a submarine like this all over again I most definitely would do it once more because I love historical ships and submarines a like but if I could drive a car i would drive there in a heartbeat and spend all day on the Batfish until it closed it gets 5 stars from me even if I been on it or not and 2 thumbs up . Ps "my grandfather was a navy man and that's why I helped donated to this submarine to honor his memory and those who served on this wonderful vessel "

Very nicely done! We had a flight cancellation on a very rainy Saturday which led us to the…read moremuseum. Glad we went. The staff was very nice and the displays were great. Keep up the good work! Thank you!

Since I'm not from this area, I wouldn't know what to expect. Obviously, the early U.S. Army had a…read morefort here. They say something about defending against an Indian uprising. I could write for days about such a thing, but that takes away from the museum. The museum has a few exhibits for free in the lobby. If you want to see the rest of the first, and the second floor, it's $5.00 for adults, which isn't bad, considering the amount of information and the orderly way in which it's presented. Of course, flash photography is not wanted, as it can cause older items to deteriorate more quickly. They had early maps of the area, including a French map of the Native American Indians, which was quite informative. A handy guide to French would have made it accessible to everyone. They presented many items from the 1800s and early 1900s throughout the building, including vehicles, tools, and clothing. There were newspaper articles explaining events. I was surprised to see the creative use of typography, given the difficulty of manually assembling a page of metallic type. Along with this, they showed a couple of printing presses. On the second floor, they went into later years, up through the 1960s, and touched on subjects more likely to still be on the minds of older generations in the area. I suspect that school kids will go to the museum no matter what, but those who don't know about the history of the area should take the trip. Besides, feeding a museum in order to help preserve your history isn't a bad thing at all.