One For The Road: Happy Anniversary, Field Museum
By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on May 2, 2012 10:30PM
The current building housing the Field Museum of Natural History opened on this date in 1921, welcoming 8,000 people in to see the new digs. From a May 2, 1921, article in the Tribune:
The museum began in 1893 as a result of the World's Columbian Exposition. Frederick Ward Putnam, the chief ethnologist for the exposition, argued that the huge collection of human and animal artifacts that had been gathered for the fair needed a permanent home. That led Edward Ayer, a railroad-tie mogul, to appeal to Marshall Field for funds. Field proved less than eager."You can sell dry goods until hell freezes over," Ayer finally shouted at the merchant prince of State Street, "but in 25 years, you will be absolutely forgotten."
Field threw him out of his office but later relented and gave the museum astounding sums--more than $9 million.
In 1906, Field left $8 million in his will for the new building, and the Illinois Central Railroad donated the land. Construction began in 1915, and all of the specimens were trucked up from Hyde Park to the new building. The Field has a whole Flickr gallery of the transport of stuffed animals and skeletons. Go get lost in that.
Fun fact: An earlier proposal wanted the Field in the middle of Grant Park, but Montgomery Ward filed and won "one of his most important lakefront-protection lawsuits."