"[4] There are also busts interspersed among the relief panels of a Native American, Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Elias Howe, Civil War General Winfield Scott and Grover Cleveland.

Completed in 1893, the building was originally called The Barnum Institute of Science and History and opened on February 18 of that year.

As imagined, it originally operated as a resource library and a lecture hall, attracting industrialists including the Wright brothers and Thomas Edison to speak.

It reopened in 1946 as a city hall annex, with the third floor reserved for displaying selected collections from the now defunct societies.

In 1965, at the urging of concerned citizens and city officials, plans were set in motion to return the building to its former status as a museum.

[2] It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2023, in recognition of its association with Barnum, a prominent figure in developing American cultural values in the late 19th century.

New galleries were added detailing history related to the local industrial age and the life of P. T. Barnum.

Barnum's personal library in his former Iranistan estate and a number of other artifacts and displays of 19th Century life in Bridgeport.

The oldest artifact owned by the museum is a 2500-year-old Egyptian mummy verified as authentic by Quinnipiac University personnel.

It also includes furniture from Barnum's Iranistan home that was previously displayed by the museum as a part of a recreation of his library, and a rare letterpress copybook of letters written by P.T.