The Florida Museum has grown from a small teaching collection into an international powerhouse for research and education.
100th Anniversary as the State Museum
In 1917, state legislation created the Florida State Museum (now Florida Museum of Natural History). But our roots go back to 1891, when a professor at Florida Agricultural College, Lake City, purchased minerals, fossils and human anatomy models for teaching. The growing collection moved to Gainesville in 1906 when the University of Florida was founded.
With more than 40 million objects, the Museum maintains the largest natural history collections in the South, and ranks among the top five nationwide.
