Wilbur D. May Museum and Arboretum

Eccentric millionaire's globe-trotting curio collection inside Rancho San Rafael Park

The Wilbur D. May Museum, in Rancho San Rafael Regional Park north of downtown, is a small but consistently entertaining showcase of one man's globetrotting collecting habit. May, a department-store heir who spent decades on the road, brought back a Tang dynasty horse, a Chinese sedan chair, a complete African safari trophy room, a Buddhist altar, a Ming jade collection, and — yes — a genuine ceremonial shrunken head.

The presentation deliberately preserves the eccentricity of the original collector: this is no orderly anthropological museum, but the contents of one rich man's house. The arboretum and 600-acre regional park around it are pleasant in their own right, with a butterfly exhibit, a small petting farm, and good walking trails. About 10 minutes by car north of downtown.

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A story
Wilbur May was a department-store heir who used his money to circle the world more than forty times. The objects he brought back range from a Tang dynasty horse to a genuine shrunken head from Ecuador, and he donated them all to Reno with the only condition that they be displayed together exactly as he had collected them.

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