Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium

Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium
1302 Main Street
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819
Call us:

(802) 748-2372

About

"A historical, cultural, and educational gem." US Senator Jim Jeffords

A curious mind, a naturalist’s eye, a traveler’s delight in the diversity of experience, and a devotion to learning. These qualities shaped Franklin Fairbanks’s journeys as a naturalist, community leader, and philanthropist. His Fairbanks Museum opened in 1891 as an invitation to learning, contemplation, and discovery, a place jam-packed with natural wonders from near and far and the fruits of human activity from around the globe. So crammed with delights was this gift to posterity that Franklin Fairbanks added a new wing just before his death in 1895.

Fairbanks and his gifted colleagues, architect Lambert Packard and exhibit designer William E. Balch, created a museum of such bold character and civic purpose that the Museum still bears its original, distinctive look and feel. Much of Franklin Fairbanks’s vision has been fulfilled – in timeless exhibits, in vibrant programs for children, in Vermont’s only planetarium added with great community support in 1961, and in programs, like the public radio weather broadcasts that began in 1981, that make a true difference in people’s lives. Today, Fairbanks’s vision lives on in the Museum’s mission to inspire new appreciation and responsibility for our place in the natural world. Come and explore.

A lifelong amateur naturalist, Fairbanks collected examples of nature's artistry and diversity throughout the world. His vast personal collections were first made accessible to the public in his "cabinet of curiosities" at Underclyffe, his elegant St. Johnsbury mansion. To this day, the collections of Franklin Fairbanks remain the backbone of northern New England's largest museum of natural history.

Crafted in the elegant Richardsonian Romanesque style, the Museum first opened its doors in 1891. At its dedication, Fairbanks set his museum on a distinctive course: "It is my expectation that studies in the natural sciences will be introduced into our public, common schools....In this way, the Museum will truly become a factor in the education of our children and young people. It is my desire that this institution take its place...as an educator of the young, lifting all who shall avail themselves of its advantages to a higher and larger knowledge concerning the things of God's creation."