Museum District (Houston)

The Houston Museum District is an association of 19 museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting art, science, history and culture.

The Houston Museum District currently includes 19 museums that recorded a collective attendance of over 8.7 million visitors a year. All of the museums offer free times or days and 11 of the museums are free all the time. Thursdays the Museum District gets particularly crowded because of museum free days. On Thursdays, The Houston Museum of Natural Science is free after 2, The Children's Museum of Houston is free after 5 ht], The Health Museum is free from 2-7, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is free all day (courtesy of Shell) .

Houston's Museum District is walkable and bikeable. Sidewalks are wide and well-maintained, and attractions and restaurants are situated near each other.

Bordered roughly by Texas State Highway 288, Hermann Park, U.S. Route 59, and the Texas Medical Center, the Museum District specifically refers to the area located within a 1.5-mile radius of the Mecom Fountain in Hermann Park. The Museum District Civic Association compared the area to Georgetown in Washington, D.C. and to the French Quarter of New Orleans.

The Museum District is served by four stops on the METRORail, one specifically named for it and is easily accessible from I-69/US 59, State Highway 288 and Main Street, across from the main entrance to Rice University.

The beginnings of the Museum District are found in 1977, when it became apparent that some action needed to be taken to provide easier access to the museums of the area. This call for community improvement evolved into the non-profit Montrose Project by the mid-1980s but changed into the Museum District Development Association of Houston (MDDAH) shortly thereafter. Based on the works of this organization, the Museum District was formally recognized by the City of Houston in 1989. The founding organization was dissolved in 1994, but the Museum District is now under the auspices of the Houston Museum District Association, founded in 1997.

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