[1] On December 12, 1981, the Minnesota's AwareHouse, the first children's museum, opened downtown Minneapolis.

Attendance grew to 80,000, and the museum quickly outgrew the original space in downtown Minneapolis.

By the early 1990s, the museum's visitors and exhibits again outgrew the space in Bandana Square.

In September 1995, the Minnesota Children's Museum in downtown Saint Paul opened with 65,000 square feet (6,000 m2) of gallery and program space.

[1] In September 2012, The Museum planned a $26 million expansion [2] and began renovations in late 2015.