North America’s oldest public aquarium is free, 120 years old, and hiding in Detroit

It’s been running since 1904 and it’s free

There’s a 985-acre island sitting in the Detroit River, just minutes from downtown, and most people drive past it without stopping. That’s a mistake.

Belle Isle holds the oldest public aquarium in North America, and it doesn’t charge you a dime to walk in.

The building alone is worth the trip, but what’s living inside the tanks is what keeps people standing in the dim green light longer than they planned.

The architect designed it to feel underwater

Albert Kahn and George D. Mason designed the building in the Beaux-Arts style, and it opened on Aug. 18, 1904. At the time, it ranked as the third-largest aquarium in the world.

Walk through the front door and you’ll pass under a carving of Neptune flanked by dolphins and the Detroit city emblem. Inside, the arched ceiling runs wall to wall in green glass tiles.

Kahn’s idea was that you’d feel like you’d stepped into an underwater cavern. A century later, it still works.

Fish tanks displayed like paintings on a wall

The single gallery runs about 10,000 square feet, and the tanks line the walls the way paintings hang in a museum. That was intentional.

Kahn wanted visitors to move through the space the way they’d move through an art gallery, stopping at each tank, taking it in, then moving on.

The scale is modest compared to modern aquariums, but the dim, glowing light and low ceilings pull you in close. You end up pressing your face to the glass more than you expect.

Piranhas, electric eels and seahorses in one room

More than 150 species live here, split between freshwater and saltwater.

The aquarium leans toward freshwater fish native to the Great Lakes region, but it also keeps marine fish and corals from around the world. You can walk from a tank of piranhas to a tank of seahorses in about 20 steps.

Giant gouramis, moray eels and electric eels all share the same building.

It also holds one of the largest collections of air-breathing fish in North America, which becomes relevant when you get to the gar.

The only place in North America with all seven gar species

Gar first showed up in the fossil record more than 100 million years ago, which makes them older than the dinosaurs. They breathe air, survive in low-oxygen water and can stay alive briefly out of it entirely.

The Belle Isle Aquarium holds the only known collection of all seven gar species in North America. Some of those species, like the longnose gar, live right here in the Great Lakes.

Others come from elsewhere in the world.

Standing in front of the tank, they look less like fish and more like something that crawled out of a geology textbook.

The axolotl can grow back its own heart

One of the most-watched tanks holds axolotls, a salamander native to the lakes of Mexico City. They’re critically endangered and may be gone from the wild within your lifetime.

What makes them remarkable, beyond their feathery external gills, is that they can regrow lost limbs, their tail, and parts of their heart and spinal cord.

The aquarium also houses several other species that are critically endangered or already gone from the wild. These tanks aren’t just exhibits.

They’re functioning parts of a survival plan.

Staff raise baby sturgeon and release them into the Detroit River

The aquarium works with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to bring lake sturgeon back to the Detroit River.

Sturgeon first appeared over 100 million years ago, and they’re listed as a threatened species in Michigan.

Staff receive young fish from local fisheries, raise them in the aquarium, and then return them to be released into the river.

Aquarium staff also run frog and mudpuppy studies on Belle Isle itself to track the health of the island’s ecosystems. The work happens quietly, behind the exhibits, mostly out of sight.

Detroit voters wanted it open, but it stayed dark for seven years

The city closed the aquarium in 2005 to cut about $530,000 a year from the budget. Voters pushed back hard.

A nonbinding measure to reopen it passed with 88 percent in favor. The building stayed closed anyway.

Volunteers from the Friends of Belle Isle Aquarium kept the lights on during those seven years, caring for goldfish and koi through Michigan winters to keep the tanks alive.

On Aug. 18, 2012, exactly 108 years after the original opening day, the Belle Isle Conservancy unlocked the doors again.

A $10 million upgrade is happening while you visit

The aquarium is currently working through a $10 million renovation funded by the American Rescue Plan Act.

The project covers the HVAC system, site drainage and accessibility upgrades, with most of the construction happening in the basement. The building stays open during the work.

An earlier $1.2 million renovation in 2021 added new tanks, brought in new species, improved the educational signage and restored the original historic marble and plaster throughout the gallery.

The building looks like it’s been taken care of, because it has been.

Speakeasies, a sea turtle and 1.5 million visitors a year

Local lore says the basement once served as a speakeasy during Prohibition, though no one has confirmed it.

Another story, harder to shake, claims that a beloved sea turtle named Big Pete was sold to a local fish market during the Great Depression and ended up as soup. Whether either story is true, they’ve stuck around.

At the aquarium’s peak in the 1950s, more than 1.5 million people a year came through those Neptune-flanked doors. The building was built for crowds.

It knew how to hold them.

The island has a conservatory, a museum and views into Canada

Belle Isle became a Michigan state park in 2014, and nearly 5.6 million people visited in 2023.

Right next door to the aquarium sits the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, the oldest continually running conservatory in the United States, with tropical plants, cacti, ferns and one of the country’s largest orchid collections.

The Oudolf Garden, designed by Piet Oudolf, holds 35,000 locally grown perennials.

The island also has the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, a nature center, beaches, a giant slide, a golf course and clear sightlines to the Detroit skyline and the Canadian shore.

Science Saturdays bring professors and volunteers into the classroom

The aquarium runs monthly Science Saturday presentations, usually on the second Saturday of each month. Aquarium volunteers and local professors lead these sessions in an on-site classroom, and they’re open to families.

Group tours and education programs run for students from elementary school through university level. Behind the building, an outdoor classroom features a mural showing life above and below the waterline.

For a free aquarium on a river island, it packs in more programming than you’d expect to find anywhere near a parking lot.

Visit the Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit, Michigan

You can find the aquarium at 3 Inselruhe Ave. on Belle Isle, right in the Detroit River.

It’s open Thursday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., though hours may shift during the ongoing renovation, so check the Belle Isle Conservancy’s official website before you go. Admission is free, with donations welcome.

If you’re driving, you’ll need a Michigan Recreation Passport to enter the state park. Walk, bike or take the bus and you get on the island at no cost.

The conservatory next door makes it an easy half-day trip.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Cars are illegal on this Michigan island — but horses and fudge shops run it just fine
• Michigan waterfront spots where summer tourism reshapes the vibe
• The U.P. town that gets 150 fewer inches of snow than its neighbors is worth the drive