|
Free Traveling Guides » States » California » San Diego
Natural History Museum
The San Diego Natural History Museum is located in Balboa Park near the intersection of Park Boulevard and Village Palace. The museum is south of the San Diego Zoo.
The Natural History Museum focuses on flora, fauna and mineralogy. Kids are fascinated by the animals that can be found in the museum and they include live snakes, tarantula and turtles. The museum also has a giant screen theater which can seat 300 people and has state-of-the-art acoustics and technology. You can watch two films in the Charmaine and Maurice Kaplan Theater and this is included in the price of admission.
The Natural History Museum is full of fossils, artifacts and exhibitions that demonstrate the beauty of nature and illustrate science. From the skeleton of the giant Allosaurus to beautiful nature photography to a live rattlesnake, you will be fascinated by your visit to the museum.
The permanent exhibit in the Natural History Museum is the Fossil Mysteries that has fossils of dinosaurs and mastodons. It covers a timeline of 75-million years from the age of dinosaurs to the Ice Age.
The Society of Natural History purchased a vacant building in Balboa Park from 1915 Panama-California Exposition in 1917 and this is where the society moved its growing collection and library to form the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Before celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Natural History Museum occupied three different buildings in Balboa Park. However, the Society of Natural Museum realized that it needed a more permanent building. So, leading architect from San Diego, William Templeton Johnson, was commissioned to design a new building on East Prado in Balboa Park.
Thus began the construction of the new museum through a grant of $125,000 from Ellen Browning Scripps and public donation. However, the money to build the entire museum could not be raised and as a result the first unit of the building at the south end and one wing extending to the north were built. The north and east were left as temporary walls and they remained that way for the next 60 years.
On January 14, 1933, the new Natural History Museum building worth $175,000 was formally dedicated and it is the same museum we see today at Balboa Park.
- Address: 1788 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA 92101
- Telephone: (619) 232-3821
- Hours: 10.00 AM – 5.00 PM
- Website: www.sdnhm.org
|
