Museums
Visitors to Philmont are encouraged to visit our museums, which tell the area's story through artifacts and art.
The Philmont Museum and Seton Memorial Library may be visited any day during the summer, and weekdays the rest of the year. Tours of the Villa Philmonte must be arranged at the Philmont Museum. No fee is charged at any of these museums. During the summer, daily bus service for participants is available to visit the Kit Carson Museum at Rayado. There is no fee for bus service, and it can be scheduled in Logistics soon after your group arrives at Philmont. The Kit Carson Museum is open every day during the summer.
Photo by Danial Giles, 2011 Fall Photography Conference
Waite Phillips built the Villa Philmonte as the summer home for his family on the Philmont Ranch. It was completed in 1927 and was designed in Spanish Mediterranean style. Restored to the period when Phillips owned the ranch, it now serves as a memorial to him and his generosity to the Boy Scouts of America. Guided tours are offered during the spring, summer, and fall.
The Villa Philmonte is open for guided tours spring summer and fall. Please call the Philmont Museum (575) 376-1136 for dates and times.
Featured Exhibit: E. T. Seton and the Indian Costume Book
Located at headquarters, the Philmont Museum houses exhibits related to the history, art, and natural history of the Philmont area.
The museum shop carries Southwestern Indian jewelry, Pendleton blankets, kachina dolls, pottery, and regional books.
The Seton Memorial Library is home to the personal art, library, and natural history collections of the founder and first Chief Scout of the Boy Scouts of America, Ernest Thompson Seton.
Inquiries about tours, donations, archives and collections may be addressed to:
Philmont Museum
17 Deer Run Road
Cimarron, NM 87714
575-376-1136
E-mail: robin.taylor@scouting.org
Kit Carson Museum at Rayado
Philmont lies on part of a land grant given to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda by the Mexican government in 1841. Mountain man Lucien Maxwell founded a colony on the grant on the Rayado River in 1848. A year later, he was joined at the settlement by frontiersman Kit Carson. Their ranch on the Rayado was visited by many traders traveling on the Santa Fe Trail.
In 1950 the Boy Scouts of America built an adobe museum at Rayado to serve as an interpretive area to portray its history and recount the exploits of Maxwell and Carson. It was named in honor of Kit Carson.
Staff at the Kit Carson Museum dress in period clothing and demonstrate frontier skills and crafts like blacksmithing, cooking, shooting, and farming. Each room in the museum is outfitted with reproduction furniture and objects typical of New Mexico in the 1850s. The Rayado Trading Company, located at the museum, sells books, maps, reproduction tools and equipment, moccasins, and blankets.
The Kit Carson Museum is seven miles south of Philmont's headquarters on New Mexico Highway 21. Summer hours are 8 AM to 5 PM daily. Admission is free. The museum is open only for special events during the rest of the year.