Why you should experience The Kazoobie Kazoo Factory, Museum & Gift Shop in South Carolina.
The Kazoobie Kazoo Factory, Museum & Gift Shop is a whimsical museum where Burton's manufacturing heritage, musical craftsmanship, entrepreneurial spirit, and lively creativity celebrate one of America's most distinctive instrument makers.
Set along Parris Island Gateway near Robert Smalls Parkway and just steps from Pick Pocket Plantation, this museum preserves the story of American kazoo manufacturing through working production equipment, interactive exhibits, colorful displays, and one of the country's largest collections devoted to the humble musical instrument. Visitors experience the rare opportunity to observe manufacturing alongside historical interpretation, revealing how a simple instrument became an enduring part of American popular culture. The result is a museum where manufacturing, music, and imagination transform an everyday instrument into an engaging journey through craftsmanship and cultural history.
What you should know about The Kazoobie Kazoo Factory.
The Kazoobie Kazoo Factory, Museum & Gift Shop is best known for housing one of the only working kazoo factories in the United States, where Kazoobie Kazoos has manufactured American-made metal kazoos since relocating production to Beaufort in 2010 after acquiring the original American Kazoo Company's manufacturing equipment from Eden, New York. Founded by Rick Hubbard and Sharlene Monson in 2007, the company preserves more than a century of American kazoo-making traditions through guided factory tours demonstrating stamping, rolling, assembly, tuning, and packaging processes using restored production machinery. Museum exhibits interpret the kazoo's invention during the nineteenth century, its commercialization by Alabama Vest and German clockmaker Thaddeus von Clegg in the 1840s, its popularity throughout vaudeville, jazz, blues, and American folk music, and its continuing role in music education and novelty instrument manufacturing. The adjoining gift shop features hundreds of kazoo designs, educational toys, musical instruments, locally produced gifts, and specialty souvenirs while supporting one of Beaufort County's most distinctive manufacturing businesses.
Working demonstrations continue introducing visitors to traditional manufacturing techniques while highlighting the surprising engineering behind an instrument whose simple construction depends upon carefully formed metal components and precisely fitted membranes. Historical displays examine the kazoo's influence across American musical traditions, while interactive exhibits encourage visitors to participate directly in the instrument's unmistakable sound. The museum continues preserving a unique chapter of American manufacturing history through education, craftsmanship, and hands-on discovery.
How to fold The Kazoobie Kazoo Factory into your trip.
The Kazoobie Kazoo Factory, Museum & Gift Shop is best experienced through Beaufort's manufacturing history, cultural attractions, and Lowcountry heritage.
Begin at Santa Elena History Center, where exhibits examining Spanish colonial settlement establish historical context for Beaufort before visiting the museum. Continue to The Kazoobie Kazoo Factory, Museum & Gift Shop, where factory tours and exhibits reveal the craftsmanship and history behind one of America's most recognizable musical instruments. Conclude at Pick Pocket Plantation, whose preserved grounds and Lowcountry setting provide a relaxing finish while exploring another important piece of Beaufort's cultural landscape. The progression connects colonial history, American manufacturing, and the South Carolina Lowcountry through experiences that reveal very different chapters of the region's story.
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