What will you discover when the Institute of Texan Cultures reopens in early 2026? Perhaps a steamer trunk that carried a family’s hopes across the ocean, a guitar that brought Texas Blues to life, or a canoe carved from cottonwood that carried people along Texas rivers.
Everyday objects become extraordinary when they connect us to the lives, memories, and people who built Texas. For more than 50 years, the Institute has cared for thousands of these treasures, each one a piece of the larger Texas story.
As we prepare for our reopening at Frost Tower, our next step has been exciting and challenging: selecting which of these artifacts will help us tell Texas’s story on the new exhibit floor at Frost. Each object is significant because of how it was used, the place it occupied in everyday life, and what it took to bring that object to where it is today.
Approaching culture thematically, our new central exhibit draws on common experiences and aspects of life shared across communities. Visitors will see unique expressions of culture and the things that unite us as Texans through four distinct themes: Home and Family Life, Honoring Heritage and Traditions, Arts and Culture, and Celebrating Community.
As visitors explore, they will encounter objects that spark reflection, invite conversation, and forge a tangible connection between the people who came before us and the people we are today. The new exhibit floor represents a fraction of the institute’s collection, along with loans from the community and across UT San Antonio collections. It’s designed to rotate artifacts, allowing us to share new stories and highlight fresh perspectives as things change over time.
In addition to the main exhibit floor, a rotating exhibit gallery and traveling exhibits will enable us to share more objects, stories and ideas. The countdown to reopening has begun, and we can’t wait to welcome you back. The stories of Texas are waiting—told through objects that have shaped lives and continue to inspire.