STETSON UNIVERSITY · MINERALS AND LIVING GROUND
The Gillespie Museum in DeLand: A Small Specimen Can Open a Vast World
At the Gillespie Museum, the scale of a question can change quickly. A mineral specimen fits inside a case. Understanding how it formed can send the imagination into heat, pressure and stretches of time that are difficult to picture. Step outside, and another kind of inquiry is growing in the ground.
By Robert Urban · PaperBoat Media
A collection with more than one kind of brightness
The Gillespie Museum opened at Stetson University in 1958. Its holdings include roughly 15,000 mineral specimens, with nearly 1,000 displayed, alongside exhibits exploring subjects such as volcanism and the rock cycle.
Those numbers suggest the difference between having examples and building a collection. A mineral becomes more revealing when it can be considered beside another: similar in one respect, surprising in another. Color catches the eye; shape and structure can sustain the question.
The fluorescent mineral display makes that shift especially vivid. A change in lighting can transform what appears to be an ordinary specimen. I like an exhibit that makes the act of looking itself feel less settled. The object has more to show than the first glance disclosed.
The founder belongs in the story
The museum’s 2026 exhibition about Nellie Gillespie connects her life as a jeweler’s daughter with her role as a museum founder. Even that brief description offers a useful way into the institution: a collection begins with people whose interests develop over a lifetime.
It is easy to encounter a museum as though it simply arrived, complete with cabinets and labels. Remembering a founder restores the decisions behind it. Someone noticed objects, cared about their differences and helped create a place where that attention could be shared.
The museum’s own exhibitions and programs keep that personal dimension within reach. Scientific curiosity can be exacting and still have a human biography.
A museum that continues outdoors
Gillespie’s grounds include a Native Florida Landscape and the Volusia Sandhill Ecosystem. The Rinker Environmental Learning Center supports this outdoor educational work, connecting the museum with native plants and urban habitat restoration.
That is a compelling expansion of what a university museum can be. A case preserves a specimen for study. A planted landscape also asks people to notice change: what grows, what flowers, what becomes more visible in a different season.
The two settings encourage different habits of observation. Indoors, a person can compare an object closely with its neighbors. Outdoors, attention moves among relationships. Together, they make the museum feel connected to the actual Florida beneath and around the campus.
DeLand has a place for good questions
Science Saturdays, Science Cafés and the seed library give the institution several ways to carry an interest into public life. The appeal is approachable: something to notice, a question to ask, an idea that can continue afterward.
Stetson’s relationship with DeLand becomes tangible in places like this. University knowledge has a public doorway. A family or a curious neighbor can encounter a subject without first enrolling in a course.
The Florida Wildflower and Garden Festival carries a related curiosity into downtown. Gillespie gives that attention a year-round home, where the mineral in the case and the landscape outside can each lead somewhere unexpected.
What I appreciate is the museum’s range of patience. Some of its stories unfold over geological time. Others can begin with a person noticing a plant outside. Both reward the decision to look a little more carefully.
Questions about this place
When did the Gillespie Museum open?
The Gillespie Museum opened at Stetson University in 1958. Its collections give mineralogy and earth science a public setting in DeLand.
What connects Gillespie’s indoor and outdoor work?
Mineral exhibits are complemented by a Native Florida Landscape, the Volusia Sandhill Ecosystem and environmental learning. The museum encourages close observation of both specimens and living surroundings.
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