The Air Zoo: Portage's world-class flight museum

Plenty of mid-sized cities have a children’s museum; Portage has a Blackbird. The Air Zoo, beside the airport on the city’s east side, grew from a museum founded in 1977 by former Women Airforce Service Pilots — the WASPs who ferried warplanes in WWII — into a Smithsonian-affiliated aerospace and science center with one of the country’s more remarkable collections. The centerpiece is an SR-71B, the rare two-seat trainer version of the fastest air-breathing aircraft ever built, suspended overhead like a steel thunderhead, surrounded by warbirds, spacecraft exhibits, and full-scale galleries painted with the largest indoor mural you’re likely to see.

What makes it a hometown treasure rather than just a tourist stop is how it behaves like one: amusement-style rides and flight simulators for kids, summer camps, restoration workshops where volunteers bring drowned Lake Michigan trainers back to life in public view, and school field trips by the busload. Families relocating to Portage discover quickly that “want to go to the Air Zoo?” never gets an argument.