Over 120 years ago, James May was hunting bugs in Brazil; using beer to get butterflies drunk before catching them.

“It’s pretty bizarre,” said May’s great-granddaughter, Diana Fruh, one of the heirs to the 100,000-specimen collection.

The May Natural History Museum on the southern edge of Colorado Springs has been a local hidden gem for 75 years, with a fascinating legacy of lineage and loyalty.

Flash back to the turn of the 20th century, James May, at just 8 years old, began collecting and trading thousands of insects and arthropods from around the globe.

“One of the secrets (to catching insects), my great grandfather, James, used to get beer sort of spoiled and rancid so it’s sweet and attracts them. Then (the specimen) would drink it and get drunk and knock out. Then, he would put them in a jar with chloroform so they don’t wake up,” Fruh explained.

Inspired by his father, who worked for the British Museum collecting around South America and the Upper Amazon River in the 1880’s, James May started his collection young and passed his love for all things creepy and crawly to his son, John May.

During the phenomenon of the “freak show,” the May’s traveled the United States with their mobile tropical insect collection, starting in 1929.

During World War II, the father and son duo, plus John May’s young family, found Colorado Springs to be the perfect home for a permanent collection; right in the middle of the country with a dry climate, perfect for preservation, Fruh said.

The museum, at the base of Cheyenne Mountain, opened in 1951, and 75 years later, the business is still family-owned and operated.

“Ironically, none of us are entomologists,” Fruh joked.

On a private tour, Fruh laughed her way through explaining nicknames for insects and told a tale of a family legacy.

“I call these the ballerina locusts,” Fruh said about a display case full of North and South American grasshoppers, whose long legs resemble those of ballerinas. “And, my mom told me this years ago, that these locusts, as vivid as they look today, they were way more vivid when she was a child.”

“We joke that these beetles are bedazzled,” she said about a case full of small, green, shiny South American beetles.

Fruh explained that to be recognized as a scientific collection, each needed to be labeled by date and location caught, and whether male or female.

“My mom, Linda, had the best hand writing, so she handwrote many of the identifying tags for the (specimen),” she said.

For generations, everyone has pitched in. And to increase foot traffic, when the Mays settled in the Springs in 1949, they opened a 500-site campground and dug six reservoirs surrounding the museum, which the May heirs also operate.

Fruh and her cousins, R.J. Steer and Carrie Wolfe, are the full-time owners of the museum, but the rest of the family routinely volunteers and pitches in to maintain the collection, Fruh explained.

“And we’ve got plenty of kids, so we’ll see what happens,” Fruh said with a smile about the future of the museum.

Learn more about the May Natural History Museum and meet the collection by watching the video linked here.

If you go

The museum can be visited every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., about 15 minutes south of downtown Colorado Springs, at 710 Rock Creek Canyon Road.