A not-well-known GEM! Great displays, interesting movie, available tours of the dig areas with a student paleontologist, lots of research activities to watch, all in an attractive building - what more could you ask for? It's a "one of the few in the world place". In the town of Gray, about 2 miles west of I-26 just south of I-81 near Johnson City TN.
Bring binoculars as well as a camera.

What a great opportunity to have a fossil sight like this located so close to a populated area. The State of TN and ETSU have done a great job of preserving the sight and making it so accessible to so many.The museum is well laid out and informative and the tour of the site and the explanation of how the fossils are unearthed, identified and cataloged is very interesting. This is a wonderful informative stop that takes a few hours. We are fortunate that this sight has been preserved and it's good to take advantage of it. The display would be interesting to young and old alike.

Our visit to Gray Fossil Museum and active dig was a fun side trip. Its not a very large museum so plan on needing about 2-4 hours to see it all depending on how interested you are in such things. Be sure to take the guided tour of the active dig where you will learn much more than just browsing the museum. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and interesting. The museum layout is airy and the glass walls allow a view of the detailed work the volunteers and scientists do. The temporary "peanuts" exhibition was a fun extra.

This museum is a Miocene-Pliocene age site. Meaning there aren't dinosaurs because dinosaurs lived 65 million+ years ago and this site (Gray Fossil Site) is 4.5-7 million years old. It was a good museum. The best part is the half-hour tour they give where you take a walk outside and see the paleontologists in action slowly digging their way down through the sediment for fossils. I would recommend this museum for smaller children (because the museum is very hands-on) or anyone who loves Geology/Paleontology.