Tracey Tomme, president and CEO of the Dayton Society of Natural History, said the museum hasn’t had a project of this scope and magnitude in a long time.
“This is a very big project for us,” she said. “There have been many updates to an exhibit here or there but nothing this extensive in over 30 years.”
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
The Boonshoft Museum is home to interactive exhibits, a planetarium, a Discovery zoo with roughly 100 animals, and a large collection of items like multi-cultural artifacts, dinosaur bones, fossils, rocks, minerals and meteorites. Most items on display come from Dayton collectors and also include animal bones, weapons, artwork, carvings, masks, pottery, musical instruments and more.
“We curate 1.8 million objects here at the museum,” said Jill Krieg Stover, curator of anthropology and exhibitions for the Dayton Society of Natural History, which is the parent organization of the Boonshoft Museum and its sister organization, SunWatch Indian village and archeological park.
The museum has raised about $4.5 million of a roughly $10.5 million goal to renovate the facility.
Tomme said about half the museum will be updated, which should increase accessibility, address safety concerns and create a “cohesive story” of Dayton’s natural history, focused on waterway and aquifer formation.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
A couple of projects are already finished.
The museum recently opened a Children’s Wellness interactive exhibit that was under construction for about a year and a half.
The exhibit, created in partnership with Dayton Children’s Hospital, has play and learning stations that educate visitors on health topics like eyesight, hearing, emotions and strength.
Visitors can test their strength, find out what it’s like to see with eye and medical conditions and take a journey inside the human body using a large touchscreen display.
Starting this week, the planetarium will be closed for a couple of weeks to update the sound and projection system and computer software. The planetarium’s new projector will have 4K resolution.
The museum also recently opened a new universal changing station designed for people with disabilities and complex medical needs.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
The museum lobby is expected to close in late summer or early fall so that a large new exhibit can be installed. The exhibit is an Ice Age diorama featuring adult and juvenile mastodons and giant beavers.
The entrance and exit also will change, and new artwork and a media wall will be installed.
The museum also wants to replace its existing water table exhibit and “climb-on” structure, and change the theme of that area to focus on Dayton’s natural water systems. The museum does not yet have a timeline for this phase of the project, and timing will depend on funding.
Tomme said the exhibit will tell the story of Dayton’s rivers and aquifer, from the Ice Age up to modern times. Visitors will be able to try out different types of dam systems, and a large section of the first-floor exhibits will be completely transformed, including the kids park.
The popular climb-on structure — which is multiple stories and has slides — will be replaced with a new structure that has a nature motif, including tree elements.
Tomme said millions of kids have played on the structure since it was installed in the 1990s.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Tomme said ideally the entire project will be finished by the end of 2027.
She said the museum’s last major renovation was in the 1990s when around $10 million was invested into the facility and exhibits.
Tomme noted that the museum did spend about $6 million on capital projects in the last six years.
Boonshoft opened the ancient Egypt room about six years ago. A new paleo lab opened up about a year ago, and an “eco cafe” launched in the last several years.
Another semi-recent addition was the Bieser Room of Wonders, which opened in September 2022.
The room is similar to the cabinets of curiosities that were popular centuries ago where collectors stored and displayed exotic and eclectic items related to fields of knowledge like astronomy, archaeology, biology and geology.
The Boonshoft also fairly recently updated the zoo enclosures and added more zoo animals, which are a major attraction. New animals added last year included “Joe Burrow,” a burrowing owl; “Ziggy,” a turkey vulture; “Ted,” a Virginia opossum; and “Octavia,” an eastern box turtle.
Joe Burrow, the owl, has been a star on social media, but other Discovery Zoo fan favorites include a sloth, a three-banded armadillo, two river otters and a pair of bat-eared foxes.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
History
The Boonshoft Museum had about 263,000 visitors last year, which included guests, members and school children.
The museum opened in 1893 as part of the Dayton library downtown. The museum, once known as the Dayton Museum of Natural History, moved to its current location in 1958.
The Museum of Natural History underwent a major expansion in the early 1990s and merged with the Dayton Children’s Museum several years later.
The museum’s name was changed in the ‘90s to honor Oscar Boonshoft, who contributed millions of dollars to support its capital campaign.
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