The Patton State Hospital Museum examines the history of psychiatry and treatment of mental illness in California state-run facilities. The museum offers a glimpse of the evolution of the treatment of mental illness during the last 125 years.

Patton accepted its first patients on August 1, 1893. The museum, only the second of its kind west of the Mississippi River, features more than 140 items. The museum itself is located on the grounds of the hospital in a 1920s cottage home that once was inhabited by hospital staff and their families.