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History of Museums in Utah
Taken from the Utah History Encyclopedia. (Links Added)
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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.


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