The first attempt to establish a museum in Děčín was made by the German association Deutscher Gewerbeverein in 1892, in an effort to open a museum of the decorative arts along the lines of the one that already existed in Liberec.
In 1908 a local physician, Franz Just, managed to convince the town council to purchase private collections for 2,000 kroner, which was the decisive step toward the opening of the municipal museum, which was finally established in 1910 by the Tischgesellschaft Alt-Tätschen association.
In 1949–1953, while curated by RNDr. Karel Samšiňák, the museum’s first real expert and natural scientist, the museum collections were rearranged and subject to a detailed review.
The museum began its activities in the new building in April 1955.
One major exhibition project was The Development of Shipping on the Elbe River, which opened in 1969 – the year when the museum was the first in the country to be granted specialisation in the history of shipping along the entire Elbe River. The museum also therefore possesses one of the country’s largest shipping-related libraries and also owns an extensive archive of photographs of vessels, a collection of old water maps of the Elbe and the Vltava, an impressive set of shipbuilding drawings and plans, and a great deal of other artefacts documenting this specific mode of transportation.
The museum also hosts a number of other exhibitions as well as ongoing shows on regional and other themes.
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