The Warren Museum of Fluorescence was named for Thomas S. Warren in 1999 due to his generous contributions. This museum occupies four rooms of the old mill building from 1916. There are more than 700 fluorescent minerals and objects on display.
Exhibit Highlights
The color wall
When entering the main room of the museum visitors will the Color Wall, a 16-ft-wide, floor-to-ceiling display of 100 fluorescent mineral specimens. Some of them 2-3 ft long and weighing more than 100 pounds. A carefully lighting sequence allows you to see the minerals first under longwave ultraviolet light, then under shortwave ultraviolet light, and finally under both. This is followed by a brief period of darkness so that the phosphorescence, or "afterglow", of some of the minerals can be seen.
Touchable Displays
There are fluorescent minerals piled on open ore cars. Suspended above the ore cars are longwave ultraviolet lights. You will see that standing by the tables and touching the minerals, it is not only the minerals that fluoresce, but you will as well.
Theme Cases
More than a dozen themed cases in the Warren Museum illustrate some particular facet of fluorescence. Some involve a specific mineral, a locality, or an activator element.
The Warren Museum will be sure to dazzle people of all ages!
To learn more about fluorescence, please click here.
