Museum of Northern Arizona, Natural history museum on Fort Valley Road, Flagstaff, United States.
Description
The Museum of Northern Arizona is a natural history institution in Flagstaff that displays collections of specimens and objects spanning thousands of years across the Colorado Plateau. The galleries cover geology, zoology, botany, and anthropology, offering a wide view of how this region formed and developed.
History
The museum was founded in 1928 by zoologist Harold Colton and artist Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton, beginning in two rooms at Flagstaff Woman's Club. It expanded over the decades to become a major center for science and research in the Southwest.
Culture
The Ethnology Gallery displays objects and information about the Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, and Pai peoples, whose crafts and daily items tell the story of life on the Colorado Plateau. Visitors see traditional pottery, weaving, and jewelry that reveal how these communities understood and moved through their surroundings.
Practical
The museum is in an accessible building with multiple galleries where visitors can walk at their own pace. It helps to plan for at least two to three hours to explore the collections properly.
Did you know?
The Easton Collection holds over 2000 works on paper, including watercolors that show the landscape as it appeared roughly 90 years ago. This collection offers a rare look at how people saw and recorded the Arizona landscape decades in the past.
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