The South Florida Museum is the largest natural and cultural history museum on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Under that same roof is also the Parker Manatee Aquarium, home to Snooty, thought to be the oldest living manatee in captivity at age 61. With Snooty, are manatees in rehabilitation for US Fish and Wildlife. The Bishop Planetarium is a digital planetarium which serves also as a multipurpose theater.

To engage and inspire learners of all ages; we protect, interpret and communicate scientific and cultural knowledge of Florida, the world, and our universe.

The South Florida Museum was incorporated on December 23, 1946 as a private, not for profit Florida Corporation to educate visitors about the natural and cultural history of Florida’s Gulf Coast region and provide the community with a museum that would attract both residents and visitors to the growing downtown district. The museum opened its doors on Bradenton's Memorial Pier in 1947 with the Montague Tallant collection of Florida's First Peoples' pre- and immediate post-contact archaeological materials, and a small collection of other artifacts, objects and biological materials related to the history of southwest Florida and Manatee County. The museum relocated in 1967 to a new, two-story building occupying a full city block in downtown Bradenton, incorporating an enlarged manatee viewing/education area and the Bishop Planetarium. In 1980 the Museum added a Spanish Plaza, emphasizing this area’s Spanish heritage with a full-size replica of Hernando DeSoto’s home in Barcarrota, Spain, a 16th century chapel and a foundation with a bronze sculpture of DeSoto on horseback.