A Museum for Nebraska
Over the years of 1892-1907, Barbour and Morrill's working partnership grew. Morrill created the Morrill Fund to aid the natural science departments as well as the museum. They began thinking about moving the growing museum's collections out of the cramped floors of Nebraska hall and into a building of their own. Nebraska Hall was condemned as a fire trap, and the fire marshall, in the words of Barbour, said "it will be useless to call the fire department should any fire ever get beyond the control of those occupying the building." Barbour was not pleased with the accomodations, and soon afterwards was petitioning for a new home for the museum's collections. In a letter between Barbour and Morrill, Barbour decries the inadequate conditions of the building and the status of the collections.
The dream of both Morrill and Barbour was to build a great museum on campus that would be considered "the best between the coasts", to rival even the Chicago Field Museum. Morrill wrote a recommendation to get himself and Barbour on the building committee for the museum so that they could have more input on its design. Barbour wrote a letter to chancellor Andrews requesting that the new museum be named "Morrill Museum".
In 1908, "the Museum" was built. It was a boxy-looking structure, designed to be a small part of a much larger building. Due to financial constraints, the rest of the plan was never constructed, and so the University of Nebraska was left with an oddball building that housed the museum collections as well as the geography and geology departments.
Barbour and Morrill began collaborating on plans for a new, final resting place for the collections.
The First Museum
Over the years of 1892-1907, Barbour and Morrill's working partnership grew. Morrill created the Morrill Fund to aid the natural science departments as well as the museum. They began thinking about moving the growing museum's collections out of the cramped floors of Nebraska hall and into a building of their own. Nebraska Hall was condemned as a fire trap, and the fire marshall, in the words of Barbour, said "it will be useless to call the fire department should any fire ever get beyond the control of those occupying the building." Barbour was not pleased with the accomodations, and soon afterwards was petitioning for a new home for the museum's collections. In a letter between Barbour and Morrill, Barbour decries the inadequate conditions of the building and the status of the collections.
The dream of both Morrill and Barbour was to build a great museum on campus that would be considered "the best between the coasts", to rival even the Chicago Field Museum. Morrill wrote a recommendation to get himself and Barbour on the building committee for the museum so that they could have more input on its design.
In 1908, "the Museum" was built. It was a boxy-looking structure, designed to be a small part of a much larger building. Due to financial constraints, the rest of the plan was never constructed, and so the University of Nebraska was left with an oddball building on 12th and S streets that housed the museum collections as well as the geography and geology departments. On March 6,1912 a fire of undetermined origins broke out in the stairway connecting the four floors and did extensive damage to the building, as well as some of the collections. Due to the fire, all the display cases had to be replaced, and all the collections had to be cleaned, preserved, and repaired.
Barbour and Morrill began collaborating on plans for a new and hopefully final resting place for the collections.
The Making of Morrill
In 1927, Morrill Hall was completed. However, there was a considerable amount of work prior to that year to get funding for the new building off the ground.
After the fire in 1912 in the museum building, there was considerable concern for the safety of the collections. After all, all the glass panes had to be replaced, the collections repaired, preserved, and re-inventoried. The title of 'fire-trap' was hardly what the university wanted connected with their natural history museum. Barbour was frustrated over the inability to showcase the vast majority of their collected materials. While the exhibit floors were crammed full of specimens, the basement, attics, service hallways, and other nooks and crannies of the builiding, as well as several other halls on campus, were filled with boxed specimens and collections that the museum was unable to show due to lack of space. Either the university could continue to collect specimens without being able to show them, or a change had to be made. This demonstratable need was brought to the attention of the board of regents by the museum's director Barbour.
In 1926 the board of regents approved of the building of Morrill Hall. Barbour had been pressing for the last two buildings to be named for C.H. Morrill, and this time it was to be. After financing decades of field excavations and specimen collecting, Morrill was to be honored with the naming of the new museum building.
Work on the museum started fairly quickly, and by July 1st of 1927, Ms. Laveda Zutter was at work on the well-known murals of Morrill Hall.
Morrill Hall became open for the public on May 28th, 1927.