Barnum Museum of Natural History

The Barnum Museum of Natural History is a red brick building with a steep slate roof that looks like a miniature medieval castle. Phineas Taylor Barnum paid for its construction in eighteen eighty-four to house the collection of Professor Henry Augustus Ward. Barnum famously insisted that the museum include a large room for his own taxidermy collection, which he wanted displayed alongside the scientific specimens. Today, the building serves as an administrative home for Tufts University, holding onto its eccentric nineteenth-century silhouette.