Eli Whitney Museum

You Are Here
40 years ago, the Eli Whitney Museum took over a building in which Heany Industries had produced industrial ceramics since 1932. The site around it was mowed short to both edges of the Mill River. A chain link gate governed access. Our production workshop was then an Amoco Station.

William Giles Munson and George Henry Durrie had documented the rich beauty that Eli Whitney encountered here. We have planted the Sycamores, Serviceberries, Willows. Oaks, Viburnum, Witch Hazel, Asters and Blackeyed Susans that those painters’ brushes suggested. We reconnected our site to the magnificent East Rock Park that Donald Grant Mitchell established 125 years ago

East Rock Park Through Gifted Eyes
It is the cameras that our students notice first – hefty and sophisticated technology to record distant, tiny wings on gossamer branches. Then it is the persistence – the best watchers arrive in pattens that mimic the habits of the birds. Our students learn – Stand near the expert observers – you will see more.

The Park, the Mill River and our site host remarkable birds, reptiles, fish and bugs…and remarkable observers. We have asked just some of the most gifted to let you see what they see in East Rock Park.