Leah Palmer

Gainesville has long been a city known for entrepreneurship and inventiveness. This fall, the city will honor past inventors and inspire future entrepreneurs with the opening of the Cade Museum.

Planned and constructed by the Cade Museum Foundation, this museum was inspired by J. Robert Cade, the mind behind Gatorade. In addition to inventing the sports drink, Cade, who worked at the UF medical school, was a collector, writer, inventor and philanthropist. He and his family established the Cade Museum Foundation in 2004, hoping to build a museum that would inspire Cade’s same joie de vivre in others.

The museum reflects Cade’s passion for the intersection of creativity and science. There will be exhibits, projects and events for visitors to interact with entrepreneurs across the state. Through these opportunities, the museum hopes to stimulate purposeful creativity — artistry with an intent to better the world around us.

The Cade Museum Foundation hosts classes and camps, engaging children in courses such as Acids, Bases and Art; Intro to Lego Robotics and Kitchen Chemistry — classes that bring art and creativity alongside the hard sciences. The Foundation also offers internship and volunteer opportunities throughout the year.

This museum will offer something new and necessary to Gainesville: a place that highlights the usefulness of both science and creativity. Because UF’s resources are focused around the STEM fields, the humanities can often get left behind. The Cade Museum, however, recognizes that inventiveness can only occur when science and creativity grow side-by-side.

Phase one of the museum will be completed in fall 2017 at Depot Park. Visit cademuseum.org for more information and to find ways to get involved with this ongoing project.