AUSTIN, Texas — For over 20 years, the Austin Museum of the Weird has been enthralling locals and travelers alike with its collection of oddities and objects that you don’t see every day.

Located on the famous Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, the Austin Museum of the Weird is one of the last remaining museums of its kind in the United States. Originally popularized by P.T. Barnum starting in the 1840s, the “dime museum” showcased various items and objects associated with carnival and circus sideshows, according to the American Association for State and Local History.

The owner of the museum, Steve Busti, was originally fascinated by these museums and saw the interest of the public from the sales in his gift shop.

“We used to sell a lot of our stuff in our gift shop, but over time, I realized that a lot of people were interested in looking at it rather than buying it,” Busti said. “I was brought going to places to like Ripley’s Believe It or Not and circus sideshows, so in the back of my mind, I always thought it would be cool to have something like that in Austin.”

Busti originally dedicated a small section of his establishment to showing off the objects, but after accumulating objects over the course of 20 years, he was able to expand into several exhibits. His passion for these oddities stems from a childhood fascination with the unexplained.

“Even before I opened the museum, I was always on the search for oddities and things that are off the wall,” Busti said. “I knew that if I was interested in it, someone else would have to be as well.”

The exhibits in the museum, which include wax figures, taxidermy, cryptozoology and cultural objects from around the world, all mean a lot to Busti. However, Busti’s favorite exhibit is one that has a personal connection with him.

“One of my favorite exhibits is ‘The Creature in Ice,’ and one of the reasons it is my favorite is because I got to see this when I was a kid back in the 1970s,” Busti said. “He was traveling around the country all the way up until the early ‘80s, and then it mysteriously vanished. I had a memory of seeing this as a child, and it shocked me because it looks like a prehistoric Neanderthal man frozen in a block of ice. It kind of scared me for life!”

The creature eventually disappeared from the public eye, but Busti never stopped looking for it. After seven or eight years, he eventually got a lead on its whereabouts.

“In 2013, I made arrangements with the original owner’s family to purchase it, and we were on a TV show called ‘Shipping Wars’ where they drove me down with the ice man from Minnesota,” Busti said. “After we premiered him at the museum with a grand opening of his exhibit, and it was a lot of fun.”

Busti took pride in being a unique attraction in the city, along with keeping the legacy of the dime museum and P.T. Barnum alive.

“I was very inspired by P.T. Barnum and what he did,” Busti said. “I feel like we’re carrying on a tradition that is no longer being done anywhere. Being that unique kind of gives us this sense that we’re carrying on the torch of the dime museums and sideshows.”

Imagination is an important part of the exhibits, and according to Busti, he wants people who visit to try to discern what is “truth, fact or fiction” in the museum.

“We don’t tell people what’s real or what’s not, but we want the person who is visiting to kind of use their own imagination,” Busti said. “I think that’s important. That’s what makes this a special place, and it makes the experience that much better.”

Visitors can find the Austin Museum of the Weird on Sixth Street next to The Jackalope bar. They are open seven days a week, and tours cost $12.99 for adults and $8.99 for children. Their website can be found here.