Best Finger Lake Region New York Museums

Many people travel around the Great Lakes to enjoy the wonderful lakes of plenty and fresh outdoors environment, but sometimes, it rains while you are traveling or you feel like learning about something new. The Finger Lake region of New York is below Lake Ontario between the Adirondack Mountains and Niagara Falls. A lot of history, culture, and famous people lived in these regions, here's three Finger Lake region museums you don't want to miss.

Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn New York

The Harriet Tubman home is a reconstructed home containing family memorabilia from the early nineteen hundreds. This museum tells visitors about Harriet Tubman's life as a slave, her escape via the Underground Railroad (the hidden path by which slaves found freedom) her heroic adventures as a conductor on the Underground Railroad and as a Civil War guide and spy, her family life and her retirement as a farmer and eventual fall into poverty and rescue by local women's groups. The local staff offer many insights about Harriet Tubman's family while a video tape gives the overall story. The museum has a huge collection of resources on the area. The house is located on the property Harriet Tubman purchased with the help of former Secretary of the Interior Seward, the man responsible for the purchase of Alaska who lived down the road. Also on the property is the remains of Harriet Tubman's first home that was rebuilt after a fire and undergoing reconstruction. Expect to spend 1 hour.

Cornell Paleontology Research Institute's Earth Museum in Ithaca New York

A visit to Cornell's Paleontology Research Institute's Earth Museum will please children since they can walk out with their favorite plastic dinosaur toy and please adults who want to pick up their favorite fossil to wear around their neck because both will find fossils incredibly easy to understand and cool. Cornell Paleontology Research Institute's Earth Museum does an excellent job of explaining the planetary changes that occurred to cause the many different cycles of life to evolve on Earth, while showcasing fossils found locally and around the earth. My favorite new creature fossil is the sea scorpion found in New York slate. The sea scorpion looks like an early cousin of the lobster or prawn, imagine paying for an 8 foot long lobster for dinner? Time travel never sounded better since of course they'd be free. Expect to spend 2-3 hours.

Corning Museum of Glass

Walk through a 3000 year history of glass making at the Corning Museum of Glass and expect to be wowed. Starting with contemporary artist, any visitor will wonder, "how did they create these works?" The answers are provided. Step by step, visitors learn that glass makers use powdered glass to either bake in a mold, attach to a hot blow tube, and experiment with a variety of techniques such as using different minerals to color the glass, mixing different colors together, adding on glass blobs, attaching extra glass pieces as some blobs, or some wire thin, combining with paints, or metals, or cutting sections off to form a huge variety of sculptures, lighting fixtures, dishes and windows to name some of the objects. Expect to spend 3-4 hours and be tempted to buy a modern piece of beauty.