Right ahead of you, you’ll spot a grand neoclassical building with massive white columns and a wide staircase, proudly sitting in the sunlight behind the leafy trees-just look for the two big banners waving between the pillars.
Ah, you’ve reached the legendary University of Iowa Museum of Natural History! Imagine it’s 1858-the streets are all horses and wagons, and over at the University’s only building, the Old Capitol, a handful of scientific enthusiasts are puzzling over a growing jumble of rocks, bones, and bird eggs. The place was called the Cabinet of Natural History, and, honestly, it was more treasure chest than cabinet, stuffed with wonders from Iowa’s earliest geological surveys.
But, the first curator, paleontologist James Hall, quickly realized that wrangling fossils and funds wasn’t nearly as fun as it sounded-so, he packed up and left, the university’s bankruptcy woes echoing behind him. Enter Theodore S. Parvin, a lawyer with a taste for adventure, determined to build Iowa’s geological collection. Over the decades, each new curator managed to snag more bones, birds, and artifacts. The big move came in 1885, when the ever-growing Cabinet was lugged over to a new Science Hall, thanks to Samuel Calvin’s knack for persuasion and fossil hunting. Two years later, the museum got its true name-and so began its reign as “The” place for Iowa’s natural history.
By the late 1800s, the museum’s fourth curator, Charles Nutting, turned glass display cases into campus attractions. He had a nose for adventure, organizing expeditions to the far-off Bahamas and even to Laysan Island, bringing back specimens that filled the exhibits faster than a squirrel at a bird feeder. Nutting’s collection grew so big, he practically begged for a new home, and in 1908, Macbride Hall-the stately building in front of you-opened to cheers and gasps.
Through twists and turns-like nearly being tossed out in the 1960s by a budget-obsessed university president or being brought back to life by George Schrimper in the 1970s-the museum survived by the skin of its prehistoric teeth. Schrimper’s redesign introduced Iowa Hall, dioramas packed with coral reef creatures and a model of Jefferson’s ground sloth, for that touch of Ice Age drama. Last year, the museum welcomed over 60,000 visitors to its four floors-each packed with more than 140,000 objects. Just think: you could see a right whale’s skeleton hanging above, a giant panda’s glassy stare, and over a thousand brilliant birds in the Hageboeck Hall. Speaking of birds, the Laysan Island Cyclorama lets you spin in a circle and spot feathered wonders from a century ago.
And just when you think you’ve seen it all, don’t miss the new Biosphere Discovery Hub, where you can get hands-on with the mysteries of human impact on the planet. Oh, and keep an eye out for Iowa’s own celebrity-giant sloths-whose fossils the museum’s team dug up near the West Tarkio Creek. Who would guess that ground sloths, car-sized and lumbering, once wandered Iowa? Imagine bumping into one of those on your morning jog.
So as you stand before these columns, you’re not just at a building; you’re at the crossroads of curiosity, adventure, and the wild, wild history of Iowa itself.
