Church History Museum in Salt Lake City

One of our favorite free museums in Utah is the Church History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City. This museum is awesome because of how hands-on and interactive it is. Children and adults will enjoy exploring here together. And it is also FREE!

Make sure to check out the stone mural above the doors.

Scavenger Hunt

The Church History Museum is all about history, but it does its best at making it fun for kids. Make sure to grab one of the scavenger hunt pamphlets near the front desk. Kids (and adults) can look for items throughout the museum and match them to who they belonged to. This scavenger hunt is just for the items on the main floor.

Main Floor

The first floor shows the different time periods of early church history for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This new section of the museum follows Church history through its various stages from Palmyra to Kirtland to Nauvoo to Salt Lake City. You will first learn about Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and translating the Book of Mormon. This is where you can watch the First Vision video if you’d like. It is only 7 minutes and is near the beginning of the exhibits. We love the moving pictures that talk, as well as the touch screens with videos.

These pictures talk and move and tell the religious background of Joseph Smith’s family.

You can crawl into this log and see all the places Joseph Smith hid the golden plates.

Lots and lots of interactive things to do throughout the museum.

The next area is about Kirtland and there are replicas of the some buildings, including part of the temple. From here you will move into Nauvoo and this area culminates with the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. All throughout these exhibits you will find activities that are interactive for children to learn about history in a hands-on way.

This area has buildings that look like the Kirtland area.

This is an actual window from the temple.

Lots of artifacts from the Nauvoo area, too.

Basement or First Floor

Downstairs in the basement, there is a small area with some pioneer history and artifacts. After Joseph Smith was martyred, many of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints came to Utah. These travelers are also commonly called the Pioneers. This area talks a little bit about them. There aren’t a ton of things to see downstairs. But you will find the restrooms. If you want to see more about the Pioneers, make sure to take a trip to the Pioneer Memorial Museum just up the road (also free).

There is just a small display about the pioneers.

There was a little question game sort of like Oregon Trail to see if you could make it as a Pioneer.

Third Floor or Upstairs

On the highest floor of the Church History Museum there are three areas to explore. First is a beautiful art gallery with changing exhibits. We have seen lots of different art exhibits here, but the current one in summer of 2025 was about the theme “Lift up the Hands that Hang Down.” One thing we always like about the art exhibits is you can vote for your favorites, so make sure to find the card or the screen where you can vote.

The art exhibit area is always changing.

We all liked this purple temple painting.

This floor also houses the Presidents of the Church hall, which traces the lives of the prophets of the LDS Church from Joseph Smith to Thomas S. Monson. There are sections for each prophet that detail their life and interests. Each exhibit also has a screen where you can listen to their voice or watch videos about them.

Each president of the church has his own display.

The displays include artifacts and information about the prophet.

I kind of want this prayer bell that Brigham Young had to call my children for prayers, dinner, and much more. It’s quite large.

This Moroni statue that is on most temples is not even the full size. It is so big!

Kids Area

The best part of the upper floor is the kids’ area. The theme of this area is temples dot the earth, so everything inside is based on the temples built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. There are iPads to design your own temple. There are building blocks to build your own temple. Some areas include places to draw and read. There is even a little toddler area with toys. My teens had fun spending time in the temple section.

There is a lot to see and do in the kid area.

There are so many different things to do for families.

The entire museum is filled with hands-on activities for the children. There are things to crawl into, drawers to pull out, rubbings to make, and lots of screens to touch and manipulate. Our boys were very enthralled the entire time and didn’t even notice that we were there for 2 and 1/2 hours. When we visited with young kids, they didn’t ask for snacks or complain. They just played and had fun.

There are activities like this throughout the museum. We pulled out this drawer and found rubbings to make.

The Church History Museum is located across the street to the west of Temple Square at 45 N West Temple. The Museum is free and is open 10 am-6 pm Mon, Fri, and Sat. Open 10-8 pm on Tues-Thurs. For other places to visit on Temple Square with kids, click here!

Parking Tips

Parking downtown in Salt Lake City can be a little bit tricky. Here are the free places to park for the Church History Museum:

Conference Center parking. The entrance for this parking lots is on West Temple in he middle of the street. The museum will validate if you park here when you visit the museum.
Church History Parking lot on the west side of the museum. This lot is Free for museum visitors, but only certain hours: Monday–Friday after 4:00 p.m. and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. This is where we parked.