The Crayola Factory - Easton, Pennsylvania - crayon factory tour and museum

The Crayola Factory is located in Easton, in the heart of Pennsylvania's historic Canal District. The factory is a combination museum and activity center featuring exhibits and activities designed to appeal to children and adults of all ages. It includes multiple exhibits aimed at many different age groups, as well as activities that are fun for families of all ages.

The Crayola Factory was opened in 1986, the same year that the 100 billionth Crayola crayon rolled off the production lines at the actual working factory just down the street from the Factory's Two Rivers location. That crayon was molded by children's television celebrity, Fred Rogers. The Crayola Factory consists of 20,000 square feet of exhibits and fun educational activities, all relating to color and creativity. In the years since, the Crayola Factory has featured dozens of exhibits, some of them permanent installations and many of them seasonal and themed exhibits. The exhibits change with each season, keeping the experience of visiting the Crayola Factory fresh, even after repeat visits.

The most popular exhibits at the Crayola Factory are those that appeal to all ages. There is a Crayola Hall of Fame, where the colors that have been retired after years of honorable service are displayed. In addition, the Factory also houses the World's Largest Crayon, which was unveiled in 2003. The crayon, which is made of leftover bits and pieces of crayon sent in by children from all over the United States, is made in Crayola's most popular crayon color, Blue.

While the actual Crayola company factory is located elsewhere in Easton, there are two manufacturing exhibits at the Crayola Factory - one for markers and one where museum visitors can watch as museum employees make a souvenir box of four Crayola crayons that they'll take home with them at the end of the visit. Other popular exhibits include Inside Out, a glass wall where visitors can use Crayola crayons to color on both sides of the wall, creating unusual effects, and the Chalk Walk, where kids can use one of Crayola's original products - colored chalk - to become sidewalk artists while parents relax on benches nearby.

The Crayola Factory also includes the Easton Press and Bindery, a functioning press where visitors can learn how to make stamps and bind their own books, and several exhibits where kids and parents can use light to make art. One of those, Cool Moves, was designed by artist Edward Tannenbaum. There, every move that visitors make is translated into color and projected onto a giant screen to make an enormous collaborative mural of light and color. In 2007, the Crayola Factory was featured in an episode of the Food Network's Dinner Impossible with chef Michael Symon.

The Crayola Factory is open year round except for major holidays, but the hours vary with day and season. Admission is $9.50 for `children' ages 3-64, with discounts for seniors and members of the military. For more information on hours of admission and group discounts, contact the Crayola Factory at 610-515-8000.