The Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium is a combination museum and planetarium located in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. It was founded in 1891, by Franklin Fairbanks. The museum and its building are on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
There is also a planetarium and weather forecasting department entitled Eye on the Sky weather station. Meteorologists broadcast their unique weather forecasts for Vermont (and the areas immediately around the state) on Vermont Public Radio and Magic 97.7 daily. The museum also produces daily weather forecasts for three newspapers: The Caledonian Record, the Times Argus, and the Rutland Herald.
The Museum's exhibits include natural history specimens, a seasonal wildflower table, a native butterfly house (summer), an observation beehive (summer), bug art, dioramas (moose, bison, flamingos, birds of paradise, snakes, woodchucks and opossums), and ethnographic displays from around the world. An audio tour of the exhibits is available to visitors.
History
Fairbanks Museum of Natural History St Johnsbury Vermont Video Tour - This video gives a tour of the Fairbanks Museum showing my favorite exhibits.Great old building and lots of things from all over the world found only in St. Johnsbury Vermont.
Construction on the museum building began on July 4, 1890 when the cornerstone was laid and was finished in June 1891. Designed by Lambert Packard, the building features red sandstone and limestone laid in Richardsonian-Romanesque style. The museum was opened in December 1891 and was expanded in 1895 to hold Franklin Fairbanks's full collection
In part, the museum's tradition of reporting the weather and atmospheric conditions comes from Fairbanks's own practice of doing it. Much of the main collection in the museum comes from Fairbanks's own collection.
Contemporary collection
The museum is organized into 3 different departments: Natural Science, Historical, and Ethnological. The entire collection includes 160,000 objects.
Praise and recognition
The museum was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The listing included one contributing building and two contributing objects.
In 2010, Yankee magazine named Fairbanks as the second best history museum in New England.
See also
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Caledonia County, Vermont
References
External links
- Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium - official site
