My family recently visited the American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Even though I’ve lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for 15 years, I had never been before!
Location and Price
The American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum is located just southwest of DFW airport. It’s one of the buildings at the large campus that makes up the headquarters of American Airlines. Although the parking lot was outside of the gates, we had to walk through a security gate to enter the museum. The museum is located just off of Highway 360 service road and next to AA’s flight school.
Our tickets were free since we went as part of the Smithsonian Museum Day Live event. Regular admission is just $7 for adults and $4 for kids and students.
Exhibits at C.R. Smith Museum
The first thing we did at the museum was watch a movie about the history of aviation and American Airlines. Of course, all of the seats in the theater were first class airplane seats.
My son enjoyed playing with this flight simulator near the theater:
Throughout the museum, we tested several types of airline seats:
My favorite displays were the flight attendant uniforms throughout the decades:
It’s hard to imagine these organs were once the entertainment on airplanes!
Check out all the airlines that merged into American Airlines!
This Douglas DC-3 airplane is housed in the hangar. This was the first airplane that could make money from transporting passengers alone.
We could go into the airplane and try out all the seats and view the cockpit and restroom.
The museum also has mechanical pieces on display as well as interactive lift and drag experiments.
Stuff for Kids
Thankfully, the C.R. Smith Museum has plenty to keep my kids occupied. This wasn’t one of those hands-off museums where everything was for display only.
The museum has a scavenger hunt for all ages.
It also has a foam building block/playground area, a coloring area, paper airplane station, interactive puzzles and uniforms for the kids to try.
The museum has a special program called Saturdays at the Smith that was just ending when we arrived. If we went again, we would time our visit to coincide with that activity.
Last but not least, the gift shop is pretty great. It has so many cool things for adults and kids. My son ended up with a Lego AA plane, and my daughter walked out with a flight attendant Barbie doll.
Final Thoughts
The American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum has more of a corporate feel than other aviation museums. It’s not very expensive, and it has enough to entertain even the youngest kids.
If you live in the DFW area, I think it’s worth the trip for a leisurely Saturday visit. If you are an AvGeek and you have a longer layover at DFW airport, it would be an inexpensive Uber ride to get there.
Have you been to the C.R. Smith Museum? What did you think?
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
Looks like such a great museum to visit!
Lauren
This sounds like a fun museum to go to! I never would have thought to check it out.
@Erica You should check it out if you’re ever in DFW.
We love the museum. We have some family in Texas we to just about every time to give the kids something to do.
@Magen I’m glad you are able to enjoy it when you come to town.
Ok. I lived no more than 5 miles from this museum for over a decade in Hurst. I read this and knew there was no way this was in Fort Worth, frankly not even really that close to Ft. Worth. But even on the wiki page it says the museum is in Ft. Worth so I’m not blaming you. WTH? It’s in Euless.
Sorry. I enjoyed the post. At least Wikipedia didn’t say it was in Dallas! Lol.
@Lindy It doesn’t seem like it’s in Fort Worth, but the city extended its boundaries right through Euless so that it could own half of DFW airport. Check out this funky city map: https://www.maptechnica.com/city-map/Fort+Worth/TX/4827000
Wow, that looks so cool! I didn’t even know that museum existed!
@rachaelmusser I didn’t know it existed for years!
The treasure hunt sounds like a great idea! Something fun that everyone can participate in at the museum! Thanks for sharing this, I’ll have to check it out next time I’m in the area 🙂
A- simplylovely90.com
@A We didn’t do the treasure hunt because we didn’t notice it until the end when my kids were tuckered out, but next time we would totally do it.
This is so cool. First I had no clue American Airlines even had a museum. Second, they should totally make a retro inspired flight of some sort. Picture this, flight attendants wearing those khaki uniforms with their hair all nice and pinned back, nice comfy chairs for a long flight. Black and white movies playing on the little screens.
@Janire I would love it if there was something like that here. There is something similar in LA called the Pan Am Expereince that looks like fun: http://panamexperience.com/
Sounds like a fun to place to visit. Thanks for the post!
@Laura It was a fun place to spend a leisurely afternoon with minimal crowds for sure.
What a fun post! I’m not an AvGeek, but I would totally do a detour to visit this museum. I’m surprised how cheap the admission is.
@Leana I was surprised at the price, too! It was very uncrowded when we were there, but I imagine it’s a hot spot for school field trips during the week.