The museum square is called Østerport because this is where the eastern city gate of the market town was located, and it was the main access to the city before new roads to Holstebro and Herning were built in the mid-1800s.
The yellow building at Herningvej 1 is the first house built outside the city gate, and it was where the Vest- og Sønderjyske Kreditforening started in 1860. In 1913, it moved to Herningvej 3, where the credit union had built the neo-baroque building designed by Helge Boisen-Møller. The building was sold to Vestjysk Landboforening in 2005.
In the square in front of the museum is Chresten Skikkild's statue of the polar explorer Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, who grew up in Ringkøbing. He led two expeditions to Greenland and died in Northeast Greenland in November 1907 during the groundbreaking Denmark Expedition. It was on this expedition that the map of Greenland was completed, the theory of continental shelf movement was founded and Denmark's rule over Greenland was solidified. Chresten Skikkild was a sculptor, born and raised in Ringkøbing, and his sculpture of Mylius-Eriksen was installed on the square in 1916. In connection with the installation of the Bybrønden in 1945, the sculpture was moved and has been at the museum ever since.
