Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture

Category: Museum

The life-long dream of Stanley Balzekas, Jr., to preserve for posterity the wealth of material pertaining to Lithuania's history and culture, was realized when he opened the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture in a "two-flat" building next to his auto dealership on Archer Avenue in Chicago on June 22, 1966. His personal collection of art, armor and rare maps was donated and placed on display. Still the president of the museum's board of directors, Stanley Balzekas has seen his museum grow to a major repository of publications, cultural artifacts, and arts not only of Lithuania, but also of the Lithuanian immigrants to the United States and the generations that followed them. The Museum quickly outgrew the available space on Archer Avenue and moved to its present location on Pulaski Road in 1986.

Departments include the Museum's main exhibit "Lithuania Through the Ages", which portrays the development of Lithuanian history and culture from prehistory to the present; fine artwork by Lithuanian and Lithuanian-American artists; a collection of more than 200 antiquariun (16th to 19th centuries) and 700 modern maps of Lithuania and Eastern Europe and atlases; the Numismatic Collection of Lithuanian coins, currencies, tokens, medals, military orders and decorations in the United States; the Children's Museum of Immigrant History; and much more.