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.
The museum’s roots trace back more than 100 years, with several dramatic changes along the way. Here is a look at the history of what is now known as “The Boonshoft.”
Dayton library
The natural history museum opened in 1893 as part of the Dayton Library and Museum downtown.
After starting in the Dayton library building, it was moved to Second and Ludlow streets and then it was housed at the library annex.
Building the collection
Over the years, collections gathered by prominent Dayton citizens were contributed to the museum. Other local natural history collections were also donated to the museum.
In 1927, for example, Frederick Patterson, president of the National Cash Register Company, went on a five-month hunting trip to Africa. Patterson returned to Dayton with a large variety of live animals and dozens of other animals that were to be sent to the taxidermist to be prepared for the Dayton Museum of Natural History.
Various types of antelopes, lions, rhinos, buffalo, birds and horns and head skins were included in the collection.
Still growing
In 1941, the library and museum found a new home at the northeast corner of East Second Street and Patterson Boulevard, on property owned by the city.
The new museum had three floors.
Exhibits for astronomy, geology, minerology and fossils were on the first floor and biological specimens were on the second floor. A section of the second floor was known as Metzler Hall, in honor of Dr. Sigmond Metzler, the director emeritus who served the museum for 14 years.
The third floor held work space and reserve collections.
Transformative director
Elmer “Joe” Koestner was the founding and longest-tenured director of the Dayton Museum of Natural History, serving from 1954-1986.
Koestner joined the museum in 1949, when it was still part of the Dayton Public Library and worked part-time as education director until 1954. He then left his job as a school teacher to become the museum’s director.
Current location
The museum moved from to its current location on Deweese Parkway in 1958.
During the planning phase, it was announced by museum officials that Richard J. Neutra, of California, described as ranking second only to Frank Lloyd Wright among architects, had been hired to design and construct the new Dayton Museum of Natural History in an “ultra-modern style.”
The Museum of Natural History underwent a major expansion in the early 1990s when a new planetarium and expanded collection and exhibit space were added.
The Children’s Museum of Dayton merged with the Natural History museum in 1996, becoming the Dayton Museum of Discovery.
Name change
The museum’s name was changed to the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in 1999 to honor Oscar Boonshoft, one of the Miami Valley’s major philanthropists.
Credit: Photo by Wally Nelson
Credit: Photo by Wally Nelson
By then, phases I and II of an extensive exhibits master plan had been completed, fully integrating the resources and potential of the merger of museums.
Boonshoft contributed millions of dollars to support its capital campaign thought the years.
The Boonshoft Museum had about 263,000 visitors last year, which included guests, members and school children.
Staff writer Cornelius Frolik contributed to this story
