When Anderson Taylor opened the Cambridge Natural History Museum he was nine years and 340 days old.
It was 10 August 2024. The museum, in the small town of Cambridge, Illinois, had a single display case. Two years later it has more than a dozen, with fossils, minerals, gems, natural specimens and taxidermied animals. Anderson, now eleven, has been recognised by Guinness World Records as the world's youngest museum curator.
The idea had come to him in 2022, during a family trip to Scotland. After visiting the Staffin Dinosaur Museum on the Isle of Skye, he decided he wanted to open one in his own town too.
Fossils alone weren't going to cut it.
Taylor pitched the project to local authorities and found a space that had previously been a fire station and then a community hall. The community began donating display cases and objects to exhibit and, after the opening, the first funding came in as well.
The museum has grown alongside the collection. Local residents bring in specimens and samples to be identified and, when Taylor doesn't know what they are, he asks experts. He is now raising funds to buy the building that houses the museum: he has already passed the $20,000 mark.
The world record is the easiest part of the story to tell. The more unusual part is what Taylor had to build around the fossils.
At nine years old he didn't just collect them. He found a space, persuaded a community to support him, organised the objects into display cases and opened the collection to the public.
That's the difference between having a collection and having a museum.
In his case, nine years was all it took to cross it.
