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History of Museums in Utah
Taken from the Utah History Encyclopedia. (Links Added)
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The Utah State Historical Society was founded in 1897, and later joined with the Utah Division of State History, a state agency. The division took on its museum mission when it moved into Salt Lake's historic Rio Grande Railroad Depot in 1980. Its collection is known as the Utah State History Museum, and has expanded considerably in a few short years, particularly in non-Mormon material culture. Various other state agencies/entities have contributed to the growth of exhibits, museums, and collections in Utah; they include the Utah Arts Council, the Utah Division of State Parks, and the state's several universities and colleges.

The Salt Lake Art Association was formed in 1881 through the efforts of Alice Merrill Horne. From this beginning, the "Alice Art Collection" grew into the Utah Art Institute, founded in 1899. Annual purchases of exhibition works through the years have resulted in the core of a respectable state art collection under the aegis of the Utah Arts Council, which maintains gallery spaces.

Utah's first state park, the old Territorial Capitol Building in Fillmore, was opened in 1930. It was the predecessor of eight more interpretive state park sites/museums now managed by the Division of State Parks. Their specific designations (and locations) are Anasazi (Boulder), Edge of the Cedars (Blanding), Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn (Fairfield), Fremont Indian (twenty miles southwest of Richfield), Iron Mission (Cedar City), Pioneer Trail (Salt Lake City), and Utah Field House of Natural History (Vernal). Subjects range from dinosaurs to prehistoric humans to pioneers and early military history.


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