In 1892 the University
of Utah emerged from the University of Deseret, absorbing parts of the
earlier institution. Museum collections were primarily for teaching
purposes. Some were assembled by Dr. Talmage, who, in addition to holding
a university chair in geology, continued to curate the Deseret Museum
collection previously mentioned. Departmental scientific collections
were developed from the turn of the century on, the most spectacular
being a huge array of dinosaur bones quarried by the university at Jensen,
Utah, in 1924. The Earth Science Museum, located in a remodeled university
cafeteria, was built in the early 1930s to showcase the dinosaur materials.
Another departmental museum in the Anthropology department was constructed
in 1950 in a World War II army mess hall adjacent to Fort Douglas. Both
museums, which were closed in 1969, were essentially the forerunners
of the Utah Museum of Natural History. The Fort Douglas Military Museum,
founded in 1974, located on the original fort property, is operated
cooperatively by the Utah National Guard and the university, the landowner.
The Utah Museum
of Natural History was established at the University of Utah by the
legislature in 1963. This state museum, opened in 1969 in the former
George Thomas Library, features anthropological, biological, and geological
materials in a unified program of exhibits, education, and research.
Specimens include those from the Deseret Museum as well as from the
Charles Nettleton Strevell Museum that was located in the old Lafayette
School on South Temple Street from 1939 until 1947.