- Hours: Open daily except July 4, Thanksgiving, December 25, January 1
- Reservations: Not required
- Cost: See the La Brea Tar Pits outside for free but entrance fee charged for the museum (free on the first Tuesday of the month)
- Location: Wilshire Boulevard between La Brea and Fairfax, driving directions below
- How Long: About an hour
- Best Time to Visit: You'll find people working in the fishbowl lab only during the week
- See It Now: Photo Tour
How did so many animals come to be trapped and preserved at the La Brea Tar Pits? Part of the answer lies with geology, ancient oceans and rock fissures that carry sticky tar to the surface. Time also played a part. Over 10,000 individuals were trapped here over about 30,000 years.
George Page Museum
Inside the George Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, you'll find exhibits selected from over 1 million fossils recovered from the area. They include a wood fragment about 40,000 years old and skeletons of dire wolves, saber-toothed cats, mammoths, short-faced bears, giant sloths and ancient buffalo, as well as many birds and other creatures.Besides the exhibits, you can watch a short film about how the La Brea Tar Pits were formed and another about how scientists have investigated their contents. Kids especially like the "What It's Like to be Trapped in Tar" exhibit and when a docent is on duty, they can go hunting for "fossils" and get a certificate to prove it.
Outside the Museum
The lake near Wilshire Boulevard was formed when the La Brea Tar Pits were excavated for asphalt in the nineteenth century. Today, it's full of water, covered with an oil slick. Methane gas constantly bubbles up to its surface. On its south shore you'll find a recreated scene of a mammoth getting trapped in the sticky tar.A stroll around the grounds outside the museum will give you more glimpses into the La Brea Tar Pits, and you'll find several pits of oozing black stuff to peer into on the grounds. The Pit 91 viewing area is open to the public and nearby, you can peer through the fences that surround Project 23, a new experiment in removing fossils from the tar.
You may even find some tar coming up through cracks in the sidewalk in this part of Los Angeles, so watch your step.
La Brea Tar Pits Review
We rate the La Brea Tar Pits 4 stars out of 5. I find the rich picture of prehistoric life that this museum presents more interesting than an isolated creature, even if that creature is a huge one.However, if you have a young dinosaur-lover, don't expect to find the oversized creatures here. The dinosaurs were extinct for 65 million years before the animals preserved here died.
Where Are the La Brea Tar Pits Located?
Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
Address: 5801 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 934-7243
La Brea Tar Pits Website
The Page Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits are located on Wilshire Blvd in the "Museum Row" area. From I-10, exit at La Cienega/Fairfax, go north and turn right onto Wilshire or exit at La Brea, go north and then left onto Wilshire.
From I-405, exit at Wilshire Boulevard and go east toward downtown. The La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum are next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The Page Museum parking lot is behind the museum. Parking there costs almost as much as one adult admission. You can usually find metered parking on Sixth Street (parallel to Wilshire and behind the museum), and if you can find a spot on the east side of the street, there are no meters. If you park on the street, enter the grounds through the gate located mid-block and you'll walk past Pit 91 and Project 23 on your way to the museum entrance.
