Mid-Fairfield County Youth Museum
Sasqua Garden Club, Zone II
1961 Founders Fund Winner
Mid-Fairfield County Youth Museum began in 1958 as part of a Natural Science for Youth Foundation program to establish a natural history museum and nature center in Westport, CT. The highly esteemed local landscape architect, Eloise Ray (1905-1955), designed a special garden of native plants which would become a living exhibit in miniature of the varied Connecticut landscape.
In 1961, Sasqua Garden Club won the Founders Fund Award for providing the plant material for this Native Plants Courtyard. Species include bloodroot, trillium, jack-in-the-pulpit, wild ginger, Solomon’s seal, yellow lady’s slipper and prickly pear cactus. Educational labels were created to help the children identify these native plants. The design featured a swamp, bog, thicket, trees, a small pool with a short brook and several boulders placed in a glacial deposit.
The Museum has since changed its name to Earthplace, The Nature Discovery Center, and has grown to 84 acres of protected lands and a building of 22,000 sq. feet. It features a nursery school/education center and has partnered with Harbor Watch whose aim is to restore the biological integrity of Long Island Sound and its watershed through credible water research.
