Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science CenterI recently spent a pleasant two hours visiting the Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center. The museum (then called Pioneer Museum) dates back to 1941. In 1976, the Pioneer Museum moved to its present location at 200 Mathews Street in the old Carnegie Library building. In 2009, the Discovery Science Center moved into the Matthews Street location from its old location on Prospect Road.The Fort Collins Museum is home to thirty thousand artifacts, ranging from fairly recent household items that were found after the historic 1999 flood, to all the way back to artifacts from the Lindenmeier Archaeological Site that are around 13,000 old. More than 120 interactive exhibits are located in the Discovery Science Center. During my visit, there were many children having fun with with these exhibits.
 Several historic buildings have been moved to the museum grounds to form the Heritage Courtyard. Visitors are free to walk into the dwellings to get a small taste of how frontier families lived before electricity and indoor plumbing.   One of my favorite areas in the museum is devoted to the Lindenmeier Archaeological Site. The Lindenmeier site is located at the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, 25 miles north of Fort Collins near the Wyoming border. Only the Smithsonian Institute houses more artifacts from this site than the Fort Collins Museum. Those who are interested in prehistoric America will enjoy the Clovis points and tools.  Like all public lands in the Unites States, today artifact hunting is forbidden at the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area. However, the site was discovered in the 1920s by recreational artifact hunters, brothers Roy and Claude Coffin. Other prehistoric artifact collections once owned by artifact hunters share space with the Lindenmeier artifacts. Here is one:  Another exhibit that I liked was this mounted Golden Eagle. In the early 1900s a local rancher accidentally caught the eagle in one of his traps. He nursed it back to health, and soon after it was released it attacked the rancher. He was forced to shoot and kill it. The rancher kept the mounted bird in his ranch house for the rest of his life.  Here's a nice exhibit ...  This is modern, but was very similar to those that were made in the Prehistoric American West.  A mode of transportation very common in the 1800s ...  Return to Denver Colorado Tourist Guide Homepage from Fort Collins Museum |
