Cooke City Montana Museum is small, local, and useful for understanding why a town exists in such a hard place. Exhibits cover the New World Mining District, old equipment, photographs, and the boom-and-bust history behind the mountain storefronts.
Stop here before or after the Beartooth drive. The museum gives the scenery a human story: prospectors, promised railroads, hard winters, and a town that learned to live from visitors after mining faded.