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Address:
Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University, 600 West Kagy Boulevard, Bozeman, Montana, MT 59717-2730, USA
Opening Hours:
Everyday
9-17h Mon-Sat
12:30-17h Sun
Contact:
wwwmor@montana.edu
Phone: +14069942251
Links:
Museum of the Rockies
Montana State university
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Description:
The Museum of the Rockies is located at the geographic center of the Northern Rocky Mountain region, a vast, sparsely populated land which includes Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and portions of Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Dakotas. Despite its relative isolation, the Northern Rockies encompasses a significant evidentiary record of cultural and natural history, unique to North America. Wrenching geologic processes including the creation and subsequent draining of inland oceans, mountain building and glaciation have shaped the region's history and influenced later development. This intensely beautiful place has served as a migratory corridor and as a crossroads for the growth of life on the North American continent.
Life here began with primitive marine plants and animals, later dinosaurs, mammoths and even grizzly bears; then to the migrating Paleo-Americans who traveled along the great ice free corridor into what is now the central Montana; on to the rise of Native American people and finally to the paths of the latter-day explorers such as Lewis and Clark, the miners, cattle ranchers and settlers. Tangible evidence of the past abounds and the record is complete enough to offer rich fields of study for scientists and humanists.
In 1957, the Museum of the Rockies was founded as a part of Montana State University (MSU) to begin the study and interpretation of this extraordinary region. The museum grew out of a collaboration between a distinguished Montana physician, Dr. Caroline McGill, and the head of the university history department, Dr. Merrill Burlingame. At its founding the museum concentrated primarily on cultural history, but within a decade the Board of Trustees voted to expand. In 1967, the museum formally amended its mission to include the study and interpretation of the region's rich natural history. Since then the mission has remained constant.
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