Barely 100 feet from the entrance to the Museum of Natural History on the University of Minnesota campus is a 7,600-pound chunk of basalt rock that was rudely dislodged from its subterranean resting place when the site of the present museum was being excavated in the fall of 1938. This pebble with ambition—actually a “glacial erratic”—is now permanently placed in front of the museum building as a reminder of the era when Minnesota’s lands were covered with a layer of ice 5,000 feet thick. With a history that stretches back thousands of years, university geologists say it was probably a crag of some rocky formation in northern Minnesota that was wrenched off by a glacier this slab of basalt doubtless looks with disdain upon the upstart museum building that this month is merely five years old. Yet these first five years have been crowded ones. Since the museum was officially opened to the public Sept. 28, 1940, over 230,000 Minnesotans and out-of-state visitors have hurried past the glacial remnant into the streamlined museum.Such popularity is understandable, for Minnesota’s Museum of Natural History is far from the usual conception of such a place. At first, it seems like a segment out of the “World of Tomorrow.” Upon entering the exhibit halls, the visitor forgets the architecture and the modernity of the surroundings, because before him is the panorama of nature “stopped in action.”
Most of us are too busy dodging taxis and earning a living to see much of the Minnesota that belongs to the birds and animals. Though we may occasionally spot a bear or a wolf in the wild, usually the critter disappears before we can even focus our eyes upon him. But the foxes. deer, caribou, owls, eagles and thousands of other woods-dwellers are very obliging at the museum opposite the old armory on University avenue. They are not at all annoyed by the intent kibitzers of their home life. The habitat groups of the museum are true-to-life settings. The beavers are busy gnawing down a poplar tree to strengthen their dam. A mother bear is instructing her cub in the ways of the woods. The spirit of the wild is so accurately portrayed that the watcher half expects a beaver to slap his tail across the wax pond and see the young bear cub plunge in and fish for himself.
Many museum visitors are deceived by the accurate reproductions of the animals surroundings. “How do you keep the grass so green in those glass ?” inquired one puzzled woman of George Rysgaard, formerly in charge of the museum’s educational work. “The answer,” replied Rysgaard, “is that the grass is really made of celluloid.” He went on to point out that the reason the facsimiles of stumps, plants, leaves, etc., are even more than reasonably accurate is that Walter J. Breckenridge, museum curator. spends patient hours on the actual location portrayed in the exhibit. Here he takes careful notes and photographs that serve as models for his reproductions, manufactured later in the museum laboratory. Reminiscing back over the five years of the new building’s history, Dr. Breckenridge expressed great satisfaction that seven major habitat groups have been completed during that period.
Seven exhibits in five years doesn’t sound like great haste, perhaps, but some sense of the painstaking problems involved is gained by the knowledge that one exhibit alone, the Pipestone group, contains 110.000 blades of celluloid grass and 9,000 wax leaves. Sunday is the big day at the museum.The doors are open from 2 to 5 p.m. and attendance in those three hours sometimes mounts to more than 1,600.Main reason for this popularity is that starting early in November motion pictures of Minnesota wildlife, accompanied by descriptive lectures are on the program every Sunday afternoon. All movies are shown in the comfort able museum auditorium, which seats 500 persons. On weekdays the doors are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free at all times. Minnesota school children perhaps benefit more than any other single group from the Museum of Natural History. In its first four years. the institution played host to 20,000 youngsters on conducted tours, most of whom displayed a lively interest in the wildlife of their state. George Rysgaard was explaining to one particularly discerning young chap that in the case of the species of shore bird known as Wilson’s phalarope. the female lays the eggs but the male has to feed and rear the young. “Gee, that’s just like in Hollywood,” was the quick rejoinder.
Eighty-two years older than the museum that grew from a recurring dream of his that started in 1915 is Dr. Thomas Sadler Roberts, still active as professor of .ornithology and director of the museum, who is today the final authority on any subject that concerns Minnesota birds. It was in 1915 that Dr. Roberts answered the call of President Vincent to be professor of ornithology and head of the then small museum at the university. He left a well-developed medical practice to do what many men long to do make his avocation his vocation. In 1916, the museum was moved to the zoology building. where it remained in cramped quarters until 1940. No one can speak or the gray-stone museum building—architects call it one of the three best examples of recent architecture in the Twin Cities—without mentioning the name of James Ford Bell, a former patient of Dr. Roberts and a man who has long had a deep interest in outdoor Minnesota.
It was in 1931 that two similar dreams resulted in action. Both Dr. Roberts and Mr. Bell for some time had contemplated the possibility of more adequate housing for the museum. In 1931, Mr. Bell offered the university $125,000 toward the construction of a museum building, if the state would match the sum. The legislature did not act and Mr. Bell finally went to the federal government. On July 28. 1938, the PWA alJotted $122,000 to the project. To this amount Mr. Bell added $150,000. In the fall of 1938. the ground was broken and the dream began taking form as a reality. This month the Minnesota Museum of Natural History is celebrating its fifth birthday. In a very real sense, the institution is the lengthened shadow of Thomas S. Roberts. It bears the mark of his scholarly interest in every phase of natural history. As we Minnesotans pass through the museum’s doors in the coming years. we would do well to pause and reflect that such a privilege is ours because two public-spirited men were not content to let a dream be just a dream.
-Ken Morrison
Minneapolis Sunday Tribune Magazine
September 23rd, 1945