The initiative to establish the museum was launched in 1959, when the need was recognized for the systematic collection, protection, and professional processing of cultural and historical material. During the following period, objects and documents from the territory of the Danilovgrad municipality were intensively collected, laying the foundations of future museum activity. The museum was opened to the public in 1965 in the building that is now the Art Gallery. In its early phase, it operated under temporary and spatially limited conditions. Over the following decades, the museum went through several phases of organizational and spatial development. After the 1979 earthquake, museum activity was temporarily hindered, but through reconstruction and adaptation of a new space, the museum was reopened on 09.12.1988 in the summer residence of Prince Nikola Petrović Njegoš.