Raleigh's North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is the oldest museum in the state. Here in Raleigh you are at the oldest museum in the state and the largest natural history museum in the Southeastern United States. The museum now comprises six facilities across five campuses; its newest facility, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at Greenville, was announced in 2020 and opened to the public on September 18, 2021. The museum is a division of the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Its story begins in 1879, when the North Carolina State Museum was created by combining two state-owned collections of geologic and agricultural specimens. Originally housed in the Briggs Building on Fayetteville Street, the collections, outreach and education programs grew for the next sixty years under the stewardship of Herbert Brimley. In 1887 the museum came under the Department of Agriculture and moved to that department's office in a former hotel on Edenton Street, across from the capitol building. An annex was added in 1899 as the collection expanded. Notice the capitol building called out in this history, standing just beyond these streets.