Museum of The Rockies - Overview

Overview

The Museum of the Rockies preserves and tells the stories of Montana and the Northern Rockies; educating visitors about the region's rich history, which includes its paleontological roots. The museum was founded in 1957, funded in part by a gift from Caroline McGill. The museum's collections have grown to include 300,000 objects that cover more than 500,000,000 years of history. In 1980, the museum acquired over 10,000 photographs and negatives from the heirs of Albert, Alfred and Chris Schlechten (now known as the Schlechten collection). These photographs chronicle the Bozeman and Yellowstone National Park areas over two generations (from about 1905 until the late 1970s).

The museum offers symposiums allowing Native Americans whose tribes called the region home, to share their oral histories with visitors. In 2005, the Museum became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, which provided the museum greater access to the collections and programs of that institute.

Traveling exhibits that visit the museum have covered topics as diverse as African American art, television and film costumes, the impact of weapons on the cultures of the Rocky Mountains, and King Tut.