Qualla: Natural History Museum of Utah

Natural History Museum of Utah: Introduction

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0. Somewhere in a quarry in central Utah, bones accumulated. For millions of years, the remains of Allosaurus after Allosaurus piled up in what would become the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, one of the most concentrated deposits of Jurassic-era predators ever found. Today, the best of those bones stand reassembled in Salt Lake City, where the Natural History Museum of Utah displays the largest collection of Allosaurus skeletons anywhere in the world. The museum itself rises from the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains like a copper-clad cliff, its terraced galleries climbing the hillside in a building that earned acclaim when it opened in 2011.

Image: Chris Light | CC BY-SA 4.0

Natural History Museum of Utah: From Library Basement to Mountain Gallery

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tricia Simpson, CC BY-SA 3.0. The museum's origins trace to 1959, when University of Utah faculty recognized they had a problem: natural history specimens scattered across campus, tucked into departmental closets and basement storage. By 1963, the Utah State Legislature officially established the Utah Museum ...

Image: Tricia Simpson | CC BY-SA 3.0

Natural History Museum of Utah: The Bone Hunter's Legacy

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit University of Utah Health Care, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Allosaurus collection exists because of one man's obsession. James Madsen spent the 1960s and 1970s excavating the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry through the University of Utah's Cooperative Dinosaur Project. The quarry remains a scientific mystery: why did so many predatory...

Image: University of Utah Health Care | CC BY-SA 3.0

Natural History Museum of Utah: Utah Through Deep Time

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Irwin-Scott, CC BY 2.0. The museum's galleries walk visitors through Utah's geological story, from ancient seas to volcanic upheavals to the ice ages. The Past Worlds exhibition presents snapshots spanning hundreds of millions of years, when Utah cycled through tropical swamps, vast deserts, and shallow...

Image: Irwin-Scott | CC BY 2.0

Natural History Museum of Utah: Living Cultures, Active Research

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, CC0. Beyond the dinosaurs, the museum holds approximately 750,000 archaeological objects and ethnographic collections documenting Utah's human history. The Native Voices gallery, housed in that distinctive circular structure at the building's highest point, presents the traditions of ...

Image: Daderot | CC0