The San Mateo County History Museum is celebrating an expansion that has doubled its size and added a host of new exhibits, with a series of activities and free admission set for this weekend’s grand opening.
The $25.5 million project includes a car exhibit that highlights the county’s role in Hollywood films as well as a new gallery that features a re-created wooly mammoth elephant that once roamed the hills of Millbrae. The expanded museum now covers an entire city block in downtown Redwood City.
Three buildings will be in the spotlight at the grand opening event Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. — a new three-story tower, a restored 19th century house and a natural history gallery built behind the existing glass-domed museum at 2200 Broadway. Many of the exhibits have interactive features to engage children.
The main museum is housed in a former county courthouse that dates back to 1910. The new three-story building is called the Taube Family Carriage House and Automobile Gallery, a 15,000-square foot building that houses galleries on two floors and event space on the third floor. The ground floor displays automobiles while the second floor contains a collection of horse-drawn carriages.
The modern building sits across from a restored 19th century house built in 1863. Named after its original owners, the Lathrop-Connor-Mansfield House was designed in a style that resembles a steamboat. The house was moved from another location in downtown to fit into the museum block. A gallery in the house features a new exhibit called History in a Bottle, focusing on local pharmacies that once dispensed cocaine and heroin as prescriptions.
An extension of the current museum also opens this weekend with the new HERO Natural History gallery, featuring giant creatures that once roamed the county.
It includes a skeletal model of a marine mammal fossil, dating from 15 million years ago, unearthed in 1964 in Menlo Park. The model of the hippo-like animal was on display for many years at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. But the creature, called Neoparadoxia, hasn’t been seen in public for many years. The original fossil is kept at the University of California, Berkeley.
Near the skeleton are sculptures of a woolly Columbian mammoth, an Ice Age elephant, and a giant short-faced bear, also from ancient times. A statue of a giant Northern elephant seal from Año Nuevo State Park is also here.
Those seeking human-made inventions should head to the new automobile gallery and carriage house. An entertaining exhibit on the first floor is devoted to car history, tracing 100 years of Ford vehicles on the Peninsula, with a display of nine automobiles ranging from a Model T to the Mustang, Thunderbird and a six-seater Woodie.
Some of the cars face a giant screen, making it seem like they’re at a drive-in movie theatre. Playing on the screen is a montage of movies that were filmed in San Mateo County, including “Bullitt” (a 1968 thriller starring Steve McQueen), “The Joy Luck Club,” “The Wedding Planner” and cult classic “Harold and Maude.”
Carriages on the second floor include many from the collection of Lurline Matson Roth, who owned the Filoli estate in nearby Woodside.
“Most of the carriages on display are from Filoli, because those are the best ones,” said Museum President Mitch Postel.
Postel has been with the museum for 42 years. Last summer he watched as the carriages were hoisted by crane into their new home on the second-floor gallery. They had been stored in a warehouse since 1987.
The new three-story building is named for local resident Dianne Taube and her late husband Tad, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who died in 2025. The lobby in the new structure contains artifacts and a short film on Tad Taube’s life.
The grand opening celebration includes a ribbon-cutting at 10:30 a.m., children’s craft activities, music performances and historical talks. Regular museum hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. About 60,000 people visit the museum annually.
Admission is free this weekend, then regular rates for admission will be charged.