History
The Illinois State Museum was founded in 1877 as a showcase within the sixth Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, which was completed at that time. As the state's government grew, the museum collection was evicted from the Capitol and moved to the then-new Michael Howlett building, part of the Illinois Capitol Complex, in 1923.
With continued growth in Illinois's natural history collections, and the need to have a dedicated location in Springfield for tourists and school groups, the state constructed its first purpose-built state museum in 1961-63. This building is the current Illinois State Museum.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Illinois State Museum expanded to also open four satellite museums. The Dickson Mounds Museum, near Lewistown, Illinois, specializes in the anthropology of the Native Americans of the Illinois River valley, while the museums in Chicago, Lockport, and Rend Lake largely contain rotating exhibitions of Illinois-based fine arts and crafts.
Read more about this topic: Illinois State Museum
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
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—Karl Marx (1818–1883)