The Odd Story of the Now Defunct Connecticut Nut Museum

From 1972 to 2002, Old Lyme, Connecticut, was home to the Nut Museum, a strange attraction created by artist Elizabeth Tashjian. The museum was Located on the ground floor of her Victorian mansion, and celebrated all things nuts. The exhibits included Tashjian’s own artwork and an extensive collection of nut-related memorabilia, including paintings, sculptures, nutcrackers, and more.

Tashjian, born in 1912, dedicated her museum to showcasing the beauty and significance of nuts in art. Her original mission was to highlight nuts in a positive light, but over time, her focus evolved. As she explained, she became aware that people sometimes referred to themselves as "nuts," and decided to use her art to "remove the demerit marks" from the term. Her work began to incorporate social commentary, using the nut as a symbol for individuality and self-expression.

Her work was so popular she was invited to make multiple appearances on TV shows like The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, and The Howard Stern Show. Though the Nut Museum is no longer open, its legacy lives on through Tashjian’s quirky vision and the artifacts she left behind.

Roadside America says:

The outdoor aluminum sculptures that were so much a part of the Nut Museum experience in the late seventies and eighties have been destroyed by vandals, and the museum is under occasional seige by various forces.

That's nuts bro!

FUN FACT: Did you ever wonder why Connecticut is called the Nutmeg State?

According to Mental Floss:

During the 18th and 19th centuries, several associations between the state and the spice emerged. Early sailors would bring the valuable seed back on their foreign voyages; over time, Yankee peddlers developed a reputation for selling fake nutmegs made of carved wood. The first recorded instance of this accusation was in a popular newspaper column of the mid-1800s, “The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville,” which appeared in the Novascotian and featured the wry observations of a character created by Thomas Haliburton.