 The Virginia War Museum was founded in 1923 by the Braxton-Perkins Post #25 of the American Legion as the American Legion Memorial Museum of Virginia.From 1923 to 1941, this "museum" existed as a "series of exhibits... housed and displayed in such public locations as were available," with no permanent structure or staff.It did not begin to take its present shape until 1941, when the American Legion began leasing the present museum's original core structure from the City of Newport News.