When the Natural History Museum of Utah's (NHMU) new Rio Tinto Center opened in 2011, it was hardly the first such museum in the state. At that time smaller museums existed at almost every state university and college, as well as at several state parks. There were also museums at private facilities, such as the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum on Capitol Hill and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's Church History Museum, among others. Although the new NHMU is a university building, it differs from all the others because it essentially functions as the natural history museum for the state.
The idea of an official state museum first germinated in the 1930s when a group of amateur “relic collectors” pushed to establish a state-run natural history museum. In 1934 smaller anthropological museums existed in makeshift setups at the University of Utah (1891–1963) and Brigham Young University (1892–2011)....
