The Burpee Museum of Natural History is located along the Rock River in downtown Rockford,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

, United States, at 737 North Main Street.

Museum history

The museum was created as a

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

project. It was established in 1941 and opened on May 24, 1942. The complex is made up of four buildings — the Manny Mansion, the Barnes Mansion, the Solem Wing, and the Water Lab. The Solem Wing is the public portion of Burpee Museum. Built in the winter of 1998, the Solem Wing houses the museum's exhibits, meeting rooms, laboratories, gift shop, and the Mahlburg Auditorium. It is named after Robert H. Solem who was a major benefactor, patron, and friend of the museum. The Manny Mansion was owned by John P. Manny and was built in 1852. Formerly the Burpee Art Museum, it is now attached to the south side of the Solem Wing and houses museum classrooms and offices. Prior to the expansion, the museum was housed entirely in the Barnes Mansion. Built in 1893, the mansion was owned by industrialist William Fletcher Barnes. Today, the Barnes Mansion houses meeting rooms and the administrative offices. The Water Lab (funded by Aqua Aerobic) is a lab facility along the Rock River in which students in grades 6 through high school collect water samples from the river and analyze them for physical, chemical and biological parameters.

Exhibits

Jane-Diary of a Dinosaur

Jane (BMRP 2002.4.1) is a juvenile ''

Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...

'' or '' Nanotyrannus lancensis'' discovered in the

Hell Creek Formation The Hell Creek Formation is an intensively studied division of mostly Upper Cretaceous and some lower Paleocene rocks in North America, named for exposures studied along Hell Creek, near Jordan, Montana. The formation stretches over portions of ...

in southeastern

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

during the summer of 2001 by Carol Tuck and Bill Harrison, team members of an expedition led by Burpee Museum curator Michael Henderson,"She" is named after Burpee Museum benefactor Jane Solem. After four years of preparation, Jane is on display as the centerpiece of the exhibit at Burpee Museum, ''"Jane: Diary of a Dinosaur"''. Visitors can discover what happened during the 66 million years she lay buried, visit a re-creation of the expedition's

base camp, and view her fully restored 21-foot skeleton. She was 11 years old at death, and is half as big as her adult counterpart " Sue," who is 43 feet long and resides at Chicago's Field Museum. Jane's weight was probably nearly 1,500 lbs. Her big feet and long powerful legs indicate she was built for speed. Her lower jaw has 17 finely curved, serrated, razor-sharp teeth designed to tear into flesh. Rockford's Jane exhibit also contains scale casts of other dinosaurs, including a 40-foot ''Tyrannosaurus rex''. Another exhibit is Homer, the most complete subadult ''

Triceratops ''Triceratops'' ( ; ) is a genus of herbivorous chasmosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur that first appeared during the late Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, about 68 million years ago in what is now North America. It is one ...

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

yet discovered in the

of southeastern

, found by Helmuth Redschlag in July 2005. Homer is the primary constituent of the first Triceratops bone bed,Mathews, Joshua C.; Brusatte, Stephen L.; Williams, Scott A.; and Henderson, Michael D. (2009). "The first Triceratops bonebed and its implications for gregarious behavior". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29 (1): 286–290. at a site discovered in Carter county on land leased to ranchers by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Preparation of Homer began in the summer of 2005, and was completed in late August 2012. The complete skeleton will be on display as part of the Homer's Odyssey exhibit, coming in May 2013. Homer's postcrania

In July 2006 The

Science Channel Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, man ...

aired ''The Mystery Dinosaur'', a one-hour documentary on the discovery and continuing scientific argument over whether Jane is a juvenile ''T. rex'' or an adult ''Nanotyrannus lancensis''. ''The Mystery Dinosaur'' aired on the Discovery Channel in the fall of 2006. In March 2007, Jane was nominated as one of Illinois' Seven Wonders.

The Carboniferous Coal Forest

A two-story tall prehistoric

coal forest Coal forests were the vast swathes of wetlands that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian) and Permian times.Cleal, C. J. & Thomas, B. A. (2005). "Palaeozoic tropical rainforests and their e ...

is created, which displays local landscape, insects and amphibians as they existed 300 million years ago. Featuring life-size replicas of giant insects and tetrapods, the diorama acts as an analogue to the

Mazon Creek fossil beds The Mazon Creek fossil beds are a conservation ' found near Morris, in Grundy County, Illinois. The fossils are preserved in ironstone concretions, formed approximately in the mid- Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. These concret ...

, a Carboniferous-age geological Lagerstätten in central Illinois, responsible for the preservation of most of the area's coal. Chief among the exhibit's specimens is ''Tullimonstrum gregarium'', the

Tully Monster ''Tullimonstrum'', colloquially known as the Tully monster or sometimes Tully's monster, is an extinct genus of soft-bodied bilaterian animal that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries during the Pennsylvanian geologica ...

, which is the enigmatic state fossil of Illinois.

The Ordovician Sea

An exhibit located adjacent to the front desk featuring local fossils from the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. T ...

Platteville, Mifflin, and Grand Detour Formations, as well as a diorama of life in the prehistoric Rockford; an expansive sea and coral margin 455 million years in the making.

Geoscience

Displays focus on how the earth was formed and the forces at work shaping our planet. Included are exhibits on economic, world and regional

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

; a 10-foot

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

model; displays of unusual rocks, gems, and

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed ...

; and information on

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...

and land formations.

The First People

Displays and exhibits give the history of

humankind Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

in North America. The First People features a full-size

wigwam A wigwam, wickiup, wetu (Wampanoag), or wiigiwaam (Ojibwe, in syllabics: ) is a semi-permanent domed dwelling formerly used by certain Native American tribes and First Nations people and still used for ceremonial events. The term ''wickiup' ...

and

tipi A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan, and in use in Dakhótiyapi, Lakȟó ...

, an

American Bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply Bubalina, buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongs ...

, and a

dugout canoe A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek – ''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' ( ...

that can be climbed into. The display includes video presentations focused on Native American lifestyles and archeology.

Windows to Wilderness-Exploring nature in the Rock River Valley

Focusing on the

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

of the Rock River Valley, the Windows to Wilderness exhibit includes live and mounted

; scale recreations of common landscapes and environments of the Rock River Valley. This exhibit includes hands-on activities designed to entertain children.

The Fossil Preparation Viewing Lab

The Fossil Preparation Lab is a window into how the museum works. The Burpee Museum is home to a talented staff of vertebrate fossil preparators and scientists who restore and curate specimens collected at the museum's dig sites abroad, including Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. Located on the lower level, the viewing area's large glass windows reveal the

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

and

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

laboratories A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physici ...

where specimens are prepared for the museum's collections and exhibits. Visitors are able to view exhibits and collections pieces as they are prepared and researched before going on exhibit or into the permanent collection. The Burpee Museum of Natural History maintains more than 100 thousand items in its permanent collection.

References

External links

Burpee Museum of Natural History

Burpee press release

Burpee/Rockford Register Star Blog
describing recent events at the museum. {{authority control Buildings and structures in Rockford, Illinois Museums in Winnebago County, Illinois Natural history museums in Illinois Dinosaur museums in the United States Tourist attractions in Rockford, Illinois Houses completed in 1893 Government buildings completed in 1942 1940s architecture in the United States Works Progress Administration in Illinois Paleontology in Illinois 1942 establishments in Illinois Museums established in 1942