Cleveland Museum of Natural History facts for kids
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| Established | 1920 |
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| Location | 1 Wade Oval Drive Cleveland, Ohio 44106 USA |
| Visitors | 260,000 |
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum located approximately five miles (8 km) east of downtown Cleveland, Ohio in University Circle, a 550-acre (220 ha) concentration of educational, cultural and medical institutions. The museum was established in 1920 by Cyrus S. Eaton to perform research, education and development of collections in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, botany, geology, paleontology, wildlife biology, and zoology. The museum traces its roots to the Ark, formed in 1836 on Cleveland's Public Square by William Case, the Academy of Natural Science formed by William Case and Jared Potter Kirtland, and the Kirtland Society of Natural History, founded in 1869 and reinvigorated in 1922 by the trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Donald Johanson was the curator of the museum when he discovered "Lucy," the skeletal remains of the ancient hominid Australopithecus afarensis. The current Curator and Head of the Physical Anthropology Department is Yohannes Haile-Selassie.
The museum has embarked on a multi-year, $150 million renovation and expansion project. DLR Group was selected to design the project in June 2019, and the museum broke ground on its new visitor hall, lobby and exhibit wing in June 2021. A new entrance and other upgrades opened in December 2022. The project is scheduled to be completed in December 2024, two years ahead of the original schedule.
History
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History traces its founding, in part, back to the 1830s. A two-room frame house located on the northeast side of Public Square, known as the Ark, housed taxidermy ranging from birds to reptiles and mammals. This was the collection of Leonard Case Sr., who passed the collection and building to his sons Leonard Case Jr. and William Case. The Ark was frequented by a group of 26 men known as Arkites. These men collected, researched, and discussed findings with each other. There were no museums in Cleveland at the time.
In 1876 the Ark moved to nearby Case Hall. The original structure was torn down to build a post office. The collection remained there until 1916, when the facility was converted to the Cleveland Public Library.
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, as it is known today, was founded in 1920. It was located in an office of the Lennox Building. At the end of the following year, the museum moved to a mansion on Euclid Avenue, a part of Cleveland's millionaires' row. This location was first opened to the public June 24, 1922.
The museum received the precious stone collection of Jeptha Wade II, after his death in 1926. In 1930, the museum organized an ornithological safari to Kenya, expanding the Case collection. The Haplocanthosaurus dinosaur, discovered by museum crew in 1954, is one of the most complete examples ever found of this 70-footlong sauropod. Beyond their walls, the museum participated in the operation of the Cleveland Zoo from 1940 and 1975; it also served as a leading force behind the creation of the Cleveland Aquarium, which it administered until 1985. In 1995 the museum maintained 12 natural areas in surrounding counties as sanctuaries.
In 1958, the museum moved to its current location in University Circle at Wade Park. The new, two-level building housed exhibits and educational activities, while the collections were stored off-site. Additions quickly followed, including an observatory, planetarium and the Kirtland Hall of Nature.
The Ralph Mueller Observatory opened in December 1960. It houses a 10½-inch refracting telescope built by the Warner & Swasey Co. of Cleveland in 1899. J.A. Brashear Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a division of American Optical Company, ground the optics. Warner & Swasey Co. originally donated the telescope to Western Reserve College (now Case Western Reserve University). It was located on the roof of the university's physics building for 61 years before being acquired by the museum.
An 85,000 square feet addition in 1972 enlarged the museum, adding galleries, the Murch Auditorium, the Harold T. Clark Library and Rare Book Room, classrooms, a paleontology laboratory, and the front entrance and lobby. This created a circular building with a courtyard in the middle.
In 1973, curator Donald Johanson joined an archeological expedition in Ethiopia, where he discovered "Lucy," deemed one of the most important fossil finds in human evolutionary studies. This Australopithecus afarensis demonstrated modern upright walking in a 3.2 million-year-old female hominin.
A new 62,000-square-foot wing on the back of the museum was completed in 1989. It added a large exhibit hall for traveling exhibits, as well as an expanded gift shop and three floors for collections and administrative offices.
In January 2002, Shafran Planetarium opened to the public. Designed by Cleveland architectural and engineering firm Westlake Reed Leskosky (now DLR Group), the building exterior functions as an astronomical instrument. Nightly, visitors can use the building's angled roof to locate Polaris. The building's titanium-coated, stainless-steel outer covering sparkles with stars created by embedded fiber-optic lighting. This system emits a subtle glow without contributing to the light pollution above University Circle.
On June 24, 2021, ground broke on a 50,000-Square-Foot Expansion as part of the museum's Centennial Transformation Project. The design by DLR Group is said to evoke the melting ice that made the Great Lakes region and the impact of water on the communities. The project is expected to be completed in 2026.
Collections
Museum collections total more than four million specimens and include specimens of paleontology, zoology, archaeology, mineralogy, ornithology, and a variety of other scientific subjects.
As of December 2022[update], these items are off display:
- An extensive collection of Late Devonian fossil fish from the Cleveland Shale, including several mounted skulls of the arthrodire placoderm Dunkleosteus.
- Nine hundred monkey and ape skeletons, and more than 3,100 human skeletons (the Hamann-Todd Collection).
- A controversial skull of a juvenile tyrannosaur that was the basis for the species Nanotyrannus lancensis. This skull was discovered by a field crew led by former CMNH curator David Dunkle.
- The holotype of the Haplocanthosaurus sauropod, nicknamed "Happy".
- The most complete mount of a Coelophysis bauri, a composite skeleton composed of multiple adult skeletons from the famous quarry at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.
- Mounted taxidermy remains of Balto the sled dog.
- An extensive mineralogy collection that includes a Moon rock and the Jeptha Wade gem collection.
- Replica skeletons of Triceratops, an adult Tyrannosaurus, and Jane, a juvenile tyrannosaurid formerly designated as the controversial species Nanotyrannus lancensis.
- Multiple mastodon and mammoth specimens.
- A cast and a lifelike recreation of an Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, an early hominid affectionately dubbed Lucy.
- A partial Allosaurus skeleton.
- A collection of 30,000 plant fossils acquired from the University of Cincinnati by former curator of paleobotany, Shya Chitaley.
- A Foucault pendulum underneath in which the Bicentennial Education Time Capsule was buried in 1996 and will be opened in 2046.
The museum has made many discoveries over the years. A new ceratopsian, Albertaceratops nesmoi, was named in 2007 by former CMNH curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Michael Ryan.
Hamann-Todd Collection
The Hamann-Todd Collection is a collection of more than 3100 human skeletons and over 900 primate skeletons that were assembled starting in 1893. The collection was originally housed at Western Reserve University Medical School in a new medical building that was built for that purpose. The first floor of this building contained the Hamann Museum of Comparative Anthropology and Anatomy. However, due to the costs of storing the bones, the collection was transferred to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
In 1893, Carl August Hamann initiated the collection. Its administration was taken over by T. Wingate Todd after Hamann was named dean of Western Reserve University's medical school in 1912. Todd managed to assemble the great majority of the human skeletons in the collection, over 3000, before his death in 1938.
Perkins Wildlife Center
The Ralph Perkins II Wildlife Center and Woods Garden presented by Key Bank, which includes live animals and plants native to Ohio, opened on September 3, 2016.
Artwork
The museum's collection of art includes:
- Steggie, an 18-foot (5.5 m)-long, 8-foot (2.4 m)-tall Stegosaurus sculpture, has greeted museum visitors since 1968. When the original sculpture became worn, a new cast (Steggie II) was made from the original mold by Louis Paul Jonas Studios, the artists who created the first sculpture. In 2016, it was repainted in colors better reflecting current scientific understanding.
- Victor Schreckengost's Pachyderms reliefs are mounted on a wall outside the museum facing the intersection of East Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The 32-ton terra cotta reliefs depict adult and juvenile mastodons and mammoths, and were originally created in 1955 for the pachyderm house at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. When the pachyderm house was demolished for a replacement exhibit in 2008, they were removed and placed in storage. The Intermuseum Conservation Association oversaw their reinstallation at the museum in 2016.
- Old Grizzly, a four-ton limestone bear, was sculpted by William McVey in 1934 through the federal Public Works of Art Project. When the Cleveland Zoo was located in Wade Park, the sculpture was placed near the bear enclosure. It currently sits in the Perkins Wildlife Center.
