Fernbank Museum of Natural History

Fernbank Museum of Natural History grew out of a forest and the dream of Emily Harrison, a young girl who loved it. Growing up in the late 1800s, Emily Harrison often played in the forest surrounding her home just east of Atlanta. Emily was a naturalist and thrived on learning about the plants and animals around her. One of Emily's favorite spots in the forest was a creek bank covered with a variety of ferns. She was the first to call the area "Fernbank," the name which records indicate was publicly recognized in the late 1880s.

As an adult, Emily dreamed of preserving Fernbank as a forest school. She retired from teaching in the mid-1930s and returned home to teach nature classes. Simultaneously, she enrolled at the University of Georgia to begin a formal study of forestry. In 1938, Emily Harrison and friend, Dr. Woolford Baker, led a group to charter Fernbank, Inc., in order to purchase and preserve the 70 acres of old growth woodland and the adjacent properties in which she had played as a child.

Emily Harrison's woodland, now called Fernbank Forest, is one of the largest urban forests in the world and the largest surviving old growth forest in the nation's Piedmont region.