Welcome to My Museum!
Courtesy of Miles Taylor
At 11 years old, Anderson Taylor is the world’s youngest museum curator.
Anderson Taylor has loved fossils since he was 3 years old, so it may be no surprise that he now runs a fossil museum. What is a surprise is that Anderson is only 11. As the founder and operator of the Cambridge Natural History Museum in Cambridge, Illinois, he’s the youngest museum curator in the world.
When he was 3, Anderson found a fossil in his driveway—the first of many.
“So the gravel that’s in our driveway is limestone, and limestone is legitimately just fossils. And that’s actually how my first fossil was found,” Anderson told National Public Radio (NPR). “It’s called a crinoid. They were very cool animals that looked like plants, surprisingly.”
Courtesy of Miles Taylor
Some of the fossils at Anderson Taylor’s museum were found in Illinois, where he lives.
The discovery sparked a fascination with fossils. Four years later, while hunting for dinosaur footprints on a beach in Scotland, Anderson learned that there was a dinosaur museum nearby. Although Anderson’s own fossil collection was smaller than what the museum had on display, he decided to start his own museum in his hometown of Cambridge.
Today, the museum has about 1,000 items. Some are fossils that Anderson found, while others have been donated. Anderson doesn’t just run the museum. He also gives presentations to school groups, educating them about fossils.
“I love that he brought this to our small community,” Cambridge resident Logan Meier told Smithsonian magazine. “It gives people something to look forward to when it’s open, something that can bring their kids to, to maybe learn a thing or two.”
Play the video to take a tour of the museum!
Courtesy of Miles Taylor
