The Museum Society opened it's museum on the premises of the town's continuation school on the corner of today's Razlagova and Cankarjeva Streets to the public in 1903. Since the very beginning the Society had been confronted with space constraints. On the 16th of January 1916, the museum was moved to the premises of an abandoned penitentiary on today's Cankarjeva Street.

The Historical Society for Slovene Styria had its first premises in the boys' seminary, and in 1909 it opened its exhibition in Narodni dom. During the First World War, the museum had to be closed, and in 1920 the collection was merged with that of the Museum Society. When the collection of the Diocesan Museum was added to the two collections in 1924, the space in the renovated penitentiary on Cankarjeva Street also became too small.

In his article on the origins of the Maribor Museum, Franc Kovačič wrote that the museum had collected 6907 objects from all three museums up to that time (1928), many of which had not yet been catalogued, and many of which were in storage and in the attic because there was no space for them in the museum.

In 1933, the Maribor City Council passed a resolution to purchase the Maribor City Castle from Vilko and Berta Berdajs, and in 1937 it was decided that the museum will be relocated there. On the 10th of April 1938, the museum on Cankarjeva Street was opened to the public for the last time, and on the 18th of December 1938 the museum collections were opened on the premises of the Maribor City Castle.