The Allen County Museum, at 620 West Market Street, is one of the more complete county history museums in Ohio. Established in 1908 by the Allen County Historical Society, the complex occupies half a city block and includes a main museum building, a Victorian mansion (the MacDonell House), a children's discovery centre, a genealogy library, and railway archives.
The railway collection is the highlight for most visitors. The museum holds a No. 10 Shay Locomotive from 1925 — the Shay being the geared steam engine first manufactured in Lima in 1880 and sent to logging operations across 48 US states and 24 foreign countries. Lima's Lima Locomotive Works produced 2,761 Shay locomotives before eventually closing in 1981. There is also an extensive collection of Native American artifacts spanning 10,000 years of regional history, antique vehicles and carriages, medical curiosities, and one of the world's largest collections of albino animals — a peculiarly absorbing feature that the museum has maintained for decades.