The Bartlesville Area History Museum, a 10,000 sq. ft. facility is located on the top floor of the City Center, a historic building that once was home to the Hotel Maire during the Bartlesville oil boom. The community has a rich and colorful heritage with roots traced back to the Delaware, Cherokee, and Osage peoples who lived in the region before the arrival of white settlers.
Through photographs, artifacts and video, Bartlesville's heritage unfolds with stories of oilmen, Indian chiefs, ranchers, bankers, outlaws, school teachers, smelter workers, shop clerks and many others who helped to shape a tiny frontier settlement into a modern city.
Area fourth grade students benefit from the experience of attending classes in the Nelson Carr one-room school in November and April, where they can experience a typical day of education and lifestyle of the early 1900's.