Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainOne of the last operating dime museums in the P.T. Barnum tradition, housed in an 1872 building on Austin's Sixth Street, with staff reporting shadow figures and cold spots in the historic structure.
412 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Adults $12.99; children under 8 $8.99. Lucky Lizard gift shop free to enter.
Access
Limited Access
Multi-level interior with stairs; not fully wheelchair accessible.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1872 · 1872 Sixth Street commercial building · One of the last operating dime museums in the United States · Austin's historic Sixth Street entertainment district
The block at 412 E 6th Street in downtown Austin was developed in 1872, during the rapid commercial expansion of Sixth Street following the Civil War. The street became Austin's main entertainment and business corridor in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and this building is among the older commercial survivors in the district.
Local lore notes that the building adjacent to the museum's current location operated historically as a brothel, a pattern common to the Sixth Street district in the saloon era. Underground tunnels said to connect various Sixth Street buildings — reputedly used for illicit passage in Austin's early decades — are part of the local historical mythology, though their extent and accessibility are debated.
Steve Busti opened Lucky Lizard Curios and Gifts in 2005 and over the following years formalized his collection of oddities into the Museum of the Weird, which occupies three levels above the gift shop. The museum operates in the tradition of 19th-century dime museums popularized by P.T. Barnum, presenting a mix of authentic oddities (shrunken heads, the Minnesota Ice Man) and theatrical reproductions (Fiji Mermaid, wax monster figures) alongside cryptid and paranormal subject matter.
Sources
US Ghost Adventures and local dark tourism sources cite The Museum of the Weird as a stop on Austin ghost tours, drawing on the building's 1872 origins and its position in the heart of the old Sixth Street vice district. The building next door is documented in local historical accounts as having operated as a brothel; the tunnels alleged to run beneath Sixth Street are part of the area's broader folklore.
Staff have described experiencing self-moving doorknobs and shadow figures in the building, particularly near the museum's more historically loaded exhibits. Visitors have reported cold spots and a sense of being watched in specific sections of the three-level interior. The museum does not operate dedicated ghost tours but appears regularly in Austin paranormal tour itineraries as a location where the building's history and current dark-tourism function overlap.
The oldest and most-cited claim is a persistent atmospheric unease that investigators attribute partly to the age of the structure and the nature of the collections — the argument being that objects with violent or unusual provenance carry residual energy. The museum treats its paranormal reputation as incidental to rather than a primary feature of its identity.
A three-level self-guided tour through exhibits of oddities, cryptids, shrunken heads, the Fiji Mermaid, the Minnesota Ice Man, wax figures of famous monsters, and paranormal subject matter. Entrance through Lucky Lizard Curios and Gifts.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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