Page Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA

If you’re anything like me, you didn’t much care about the La Brea Tar Pits until Arnold Schwarzenegger took a face plant into them in Last Action Hero. Turns out there’s, like, a whole museum and stuff. Do something different the next time you cruise L.A.’s Miracle Mile and visit the Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park.

Compared to the massive dinosaur skeletons you’ll see at the flagship facility, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Page Museum has a relatively modern collection. The oldest of its finds, a chunk of wood, dates back only 40,000 years, and all of its once-mobile specimens date back only 10,000-40,000 years. This is as much a warning as it is a fact: at the Tar Pits, you will not see dinosaurs!

What you will see is an exhaustive collection of remarkably preserved and perilously restored bird, mammal and plant fossils fished from the inky depths of La Brea. Well, they dig them out of the ground like a normal excavation, but the process in these asphalt-strewn pits is not without considerable challenge. It’s something you’ll learn a lot about at the museum.

At the park you’ve got the pits themselves, many of which you can explore free of charge and at your leisure, and then you’ve got the Page Museum, which does carry a small free but benefits you by adding some context to all the holes in the ground. Inside the museum you’ll see the very best specimens from an enormous collection of over 3 million bones and fossils.

Fossils on display, bits and whole skeletons, include the remains of Harlan’s ground sloths, American bison, American mastodons, Columbian mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, dire wolves, California condors, mountain lions, prehistoric skunks, mice, rabbits, several kinds of bear, and the partial skull of one human.

Until recently you could watch a live excavation at Pit 91 during the summer months, but the dig has gone on temporary hiatus with no set schedule to restart. It’s definitely a missed feature for you summertime visitors.

The Page Museum is located at 5801 Wilshire Boulevard in Hancock Park in Los Angeles. Make it to the museum, you won’t have any trouble finding the Pits. The Page Museum is open daily except for select holidays, offers daily tours as park of the Hancock Park guided tour, and charges an adult admission of $7. Learn more.

Hotels in Los Angeles, CA
If you’re traveling in, stay well and for not too much money at either of today’s recommendations:

• Holiday Inn Express – Century City Hotel – This surprisingly chic HI Express is never overpriced and is located just 5 miles from the pits. Stay “green” with their hybrid car package.
• Holiday Inn LAX Airport Hotel – Stay simple in Los Angeles at this airport hotel which was recently renovated up to a more than modern standard. The hotel is 100% smoke-free and offers an airport shuttle.

Have fun visiting the Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California.

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