Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium Review

Ever since I moved to Vermont I have ALWAYS wanted to visit the Fairbanks Museum, My husband remembers going as a child and he always talked about how fun it was. I was able to score some commentary tickets to take my family and we had a BLAST!

The Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium  is located in the beautiful and historical town of St Johnsbury, Vermont. It was founded in 1889 by St. Johnsbury industrialist Franklin Fairbanks. The building is a BEAUTIFUL historical Victorian building that houses an array of taxidermy, dolls, tools and other historical artifacts. They also house the only public Planetarium in Vermont! The Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium houses over 75,000 natural science specimens (mounted birds, mammals, reptiles and fish; insects; nests and eggs; shells; fossils; rocks and minerals; herbarium), 95,000 historical artifacts (tools; toys; dolls; textiles; weapons; archival photographs and documents) and 5,000 ethnological items representing Oceania, the Near East, Africa, Egypt, Japan and native North America.

The Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium is very affordable with prices being

Adults: $8.00
Senior citizens and children under 17: $6.00
Children under 5: FREE
Fairbanks Family Pass (includes general admission for up to 2 adults and their children under 17): $20.00

Family Pass Plus (includes general admission plus planetarium tickets for up to 2 adults and their children under 17): $36.00

Discounted admission is available for schools and groups.

The museum is opened every day 9AM to 5PM and is closed New Year’s Day, Easter, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

The museum is LOADED with tons of things to see so I suggest setting aside a few hours!

The gentleman at the front desk was VERY kind and very knowable about the museum and the history behind it which was great to hear him talk about it. I love arriving to a place that has knowledge staff. He had wonderful people skills and it was great to be greeted with a smiling face when we arrived.

We started by looking at all the Taxidermy.

One of my favorite specimens was the bird in the right hand corner, it was a bird that resided at the museum and when it passed away, it was taxidermied and placed in the museum. I also enjoyed seeing many of the extinct animals in the collection.

There are TONS of things to look at on the bottom floor and the day we visited there was a dinosaur exhibit which was  organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York,and features fossils and models. It will be showing until Mid December.

We headed up stairs up a beautiful swirl wooden staircase that lead to even more exhibits.

*View from the top*

Upstairs had some great local artifacts as well as the ethnological items representing Oceania, the Near East, Africa, Egypt, Japan and native North America. I found more interest in the local artifacts but the ethological items were very interesting and beautifully displayed.

Downstairs also features scales and other great items!

The Planetarium is located up the main stairwell near the entrance and even though we didn’t not attend this time, we plan to next time.

Review:

My family had a BLAST visiting here! All of the staff were very kind and the museum was both quiet and very clean. One of my FAVORITE exhibits was the wildflower table which features REAL in season flowers, It has been a part of the museum since 1903 and features around 400 species displayed throughout the year, in both fruit and flowering stages. There are so many different things to see and there was a lot of “oh wow” coming from my party. It was well worth the hour plus drive to get there because there are just SO many things to see. I was really excited to see a gun on display that was manufactured in the town I currently live in.

My family will DEFIANTLY be returning in the future! If you reside in Vermont or New Hampshire or are planning a trip to this area The Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium is a MUST visit!

Located at

1302 Main Street
St. Johnsbury, Vermont

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