Meet the 11-year-old fossil hunter who opened his own museum at age 9

When you’ve been collecting fossils for as long as 11-year-old Anderson Taylor has, eventually you’re going to need somewhere to put them all. Naturally, he opened a museum.

No, really. Head to the preteen’s hometown of Cambridge, Ill., and you’ll find his museum, proudly displaying a big sign his grandmother made for him out front: Cambridge Natural History Museum .

Some visitors, Taylor says, don’t believe him when they find out he’s the one running the place.

And that’s when he’ll proudly whip out his recently awarded Guinness World Record plaque.

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“It says Anderson Taylor, as of August 8th … 2024 is the youngest male museum curator,” he told As It Happens guest host, Saroja Coehlo. Taylor says he was told there is no young female record holder with a curator designation at this time.

The plaque and honour, which he received last month, also shows his age: he opened the museum dedicated to fossils and natural history when he was just nine years and 340 days old.

Taylor’s passion for dinosaurs and fossils began at an age when most kids would struggle to say “Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

“When I was three years old, I was watching a show about dinosaurs and they were talking about some fossils,” said Taylor. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna go find a fossil,’ and I walked outside to my driveway, and essentially started looking around.”

Believe it or not, he actually found one that day: a crinoid fossil in his yard. And just like that, a paleontology obsession was born.

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In the years that followed, Taylor continued building his fossil collection. Some specimens came from family trips, others were gifted to him on holidays, and some he and his friends discovered in the gravel playground at his school.

Eventually, his collection grew so large that, as Taylor puts it, his “mom wanted it out of the house.”

After striking a deal with the town, Taylor was able to use a municipally-owned building rent-free for a year and a half, giving him time to work toward purchasing the property. While CBC was unable to verify the purchase price, Taylor's GoFundMe page says that an estimated $50,000 was required to purchase and renovate the building.