Museums on Hilton Head Island

Coastal Discovery Museum

100 William Hilton Parkway 843-689-6767. The Coastal Discovery Museum offers programs, activities, and exhibits year-round to make learning about Hilton Head and other sea islands an enjoyable experience for island visitors and residents alike.

The Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton Head Island is a great place to visit any time of the year. With indoor and outdoor exhibits, activity centers in the Sea Island Classroom, the History Time-line Exhibit, and Museum Store on-site, plus 11 different tours and cruises around the island, the Museum is a fantastic way to become familiar with the island's unique history and ecology. More than 125,000 visitors and students enjoyed classes, exhibits and tours last year.
Coastal Discovery Museum

Sandbox, Childrens Interactive Museum

843.842.7645. The Sandbox in Hilton Head is a hands-on interactive museum filled with unique entertaining, and educational play areas to explore. Children can sail away on Captain William Hilton’s ship of discovery or find their Passport to the World in the international airport terminal with a plane ready for little pilots to fly.
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Heyward House Historic Center

52 Boundary Street 843-757-6293. The Cole-Heyward House, built as a summer home for a local plantation owner, was constructed CIRCA 1840 and is one of only eight antebellum homes remaining in the Lowcountry coastal town of Bluffton, and is the only historic home open for visitation to the public.
Heyward House Historic Center

Penn Center On St.Helena

Penn Center, Incorporated is a non-profit organization designed to promote and preserve Sea Island history and Culture. Begun in 1862 as Penn School, an experimental program to educate Sea Island slaves freed at the beginning of the Civil War, it is the oldest and most persistent survivor of the Port Royal Experiment.

During the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference chose Penn as a training site for retreat and strategic planning. The Peace Corps and the Conscientious Objector Programs used the sight for training, lodging, planning and community service. By the early 80s, it became Penn Center, an agency linked to the past and connected to the future. Today, it fosters a vision of shared culture, preserved history and attainable world harmony.

Penn School National Historic Landmark District
P.O. Box 126, St. Helena Island, South Carolina 29920
Phone: (843) 838-2432
http://www.penncenter.com/history.html

Parris Island Museum in Beaufort

Since its dedication on January 8, 1975, Parris Island Museum has collected, preserved, exhibited, and held artifacts, art, memorabilia, photographs, and personal papers of lasting historical and traditional value. As the Marine Corps' first Command Museum, Parris Island Museum is devoted to the education, enrichment, and inspiration of Marines and the general public

In addition to extensive exhibits outlining the history of Parris Island and the United States Marine Corps, Parris Island Museum contains several key areas of interest dedicated to a variety of specialized topics.
http://www.mcrdpi.usmc.mil/units/museum/