Mulberry Phosphate Museum

The City of Mulberry has long been known as the Phosphate Capital of the world.  It is home to the Mulberry Phosphate Museum which houses an outstanding collection of fossilized remains, area memorabilia, and educational exhibits on the Phosphate Industry.  As you walk through our museum, you will experience the Earth’s past, viewing the remains of various types of marine life as well as reptiles and mammals dating back millions of years.  Your visit will be an introduction to the relationship of animal remains with the modern Phosphate Industry. Florida has evolved dramatically over the last 65 million years.  From volcanic island to lush tropical landscape, the land teemed with plant and animal life from the sea and from the land.  Your museum visit begins almost 250 million years ago.  The sea covered the land which would one day become Florida.  Shells, coral, fish, and plants as well as sharks, whales, and turtles, dominated the sea floor.  Some of the sea life could grow to enormous sizes.  Slowly, over millions of years, the sea bottom continued to build up.  About 65 million years ago, a volcanic island emerged from the primeval sea.  Soon animals like the alligator, horse, crocodile, mastodon, wooly mammoth, camel, and rhinoceros dominated the landscape. With the coming of the “Great Ice Age”, the animal population increased.  The fossil record shows Florida to be a melting pot for many different types of animals and plants. At least 10 million years ago, the ocean flooded the area now called Florida.  As the waters washed the state, billions of phosphate particles were deposited on the land.  These particles, along with sand and clay, settled into strata.  The retreating water eventually buried these phosphate beds under tons of sandy soil, mostly in Central Florida.  This area became known as the Bone Valley because of the bones and fossilized remains of prehistoric animals that are common to phosphate deposits.