The Tallahassee Museum provides experiential learning opportunities on the natural and cultural heritage of the Tallahassee region and plays a vital role in creating a sense of place.

The Tallahassee Museum is located on 52 acres in SW Tallahassee bordering beautiful Lake Bradford. The city’s oldest museum features an 1880s farmstead, historic buildings, natural habitat zoo, discovery center, and scenic grounds that provide hands-on learning and entertainment for all ages.

The Museum is a vibrant, nationally recognized and accredited museum that offers exhibits, education programs and cultural events. It collects, preserves, and conserves historic artifacts and natural science specimens that reflect and support its mission. The Museum uses its permanent collection (9,000 objects, 127 cubic feet of archival material documenting the Museum’s history, 14 historic structures) and a living collection (100 native and domestic animals, 45 species) in its exhibits, to augment traveling exhibitions and as an invaluable resource for scholarly and academic research.

Through its research activities, the Museum contributes to the base of published knowledge on our region’s history, cultural pathways, natural environment and indigenous wildlife. Visit us on the web at: www.tallahasseemuseum

Through its research activities, the Museum contributes to the base of published knowledge on our region’s history, cultural pathways, natural environment and indigenous wildlife. Visit us on the web at: www.tallahasseemuseum.org

The Tallahassee Museum promotes knowledge and understanding of the Big Bend's cultural history and natural environment, inspiring people to enrich their lives and build a better community.

Founded in 1957 as the Tallahassee Junior Museum, the Museum’s founding vision was to give children out-of-classroom, hands-on experiences related to the natural and cultural history of the world. Originally located downtown, the Museum moved to its present 52-acre location in 1962. A main building complex was built containing exhibits, collections, classrooms, and offices. With a permanent location, the Museum acquired a 19th Century farm with associated buildings, artifacts, and livestock. A teaching collection of small animals was established and then expanded during the 1970s into the current displays of native wildlife in large, natural areas. Nature trails, gardens and additional historical buildings were also added.

Rapid regional growth, the diversification of its audience and the composition of its collections propelled the evolution of the Museum into a regional museum of history and natural science suitable for people of all ages. In response, the Museum modified its purpose in the late 1980s to refrain from worldwide collecting efforts and refined its mission to focus only on the cultural and natural history of the Big Bend region from the 19th Century forward. To be more consistent with its purpose, the Museum changed its name to Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science in 1992. In 2005, the Museum registered the “Tallahassee Museum” to use as its fictitious name. The Museum received its first national accreditation from the American Association of Museums in 1985 and has subsequently maintained this accreditation two more consecutive times with the most recent accreditation being awarded in 2008. The Museum is regularly considered one of the region's top tourist destinations and has been recognized numerous times as the "Best Museum", "Best Place To Take Kids" and "Best Local Attraction" in Best of Tallahassee surveys. In 2010, the Museum was recognized as the Non-Profit Business of the Year by the Tallahassee Area Chamber of Commerce.

SketchCrawl

The 34th annual worldwide SketchCrawl is on January 21, 2012. Ten local artists will be on the museum grounds that day making sketches of the Museum for the exhibition entitled "SketchCrawling @ the Museum." The exhibition opens on January 27th in the Phipps Gallery, and runs through February 26, 2012. There will be a FREE opening reception in the Phipps Gallery on January 29th.

Private Non-Profit