Chicago's Field Museum

For two full days, we have been exploring one of the world's largest natural history museums, with over 24 million specimens and objects: the Field Museum of Chicago. The beginnings of this museum date back to the Chicago World's Fair (also known as the World's Colombian Exposition) of 1893. Merchant Marshall Field was talked into funding the museum, which was originally called the Columbian Museum of Chicago. The only remaining building from the 1893 Exposition ( The Palace of Fine Arts) became the home for the new museum. In 1905, the name was changed to Field Museum of Natural history and by 1921 it relocated to its current site on area known as the Museum Campus (while the previous site became the Museum of Science and Industry). Ten years later, the Field Museum had become one of three premier natural history museums in the United States (after the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.). In May of 2000, "Sue", the most complete and best preserved T-Rex fossil (approximately 67 million years old) became one of the museum's highlight exhibits. Over two million visitors per year visit the Field Museum.

Chicago's Field Museum.

The museum's reception hall is the length of a football field, with a ceiling height of seventy feet.

The 67 million year old fossil of "Sue", the most complete and best preserved specimen of a T-Rex.

Sue's original head was too heavy to be supported properly on the exhibit. So a plaster replica mold was created for the exhibit, while the real head is on display elsewhere.

From time-to-time, Chicago pride is also on display.

In 1909, these two "fighting elephants" were donated to the museum by Carl and Delia Akeley. They were the first elephants to be taxidermied.

Forty-eight years ago, Lori and I began American Peace Corps training for the West African country of Senegal. So we were thrilled to see this exhibit on display, as it brought back so many pleasant memories for us.

Preparing for supper in a typical Wolof tribal community in Senegal.

This China temporary exhibit in the museum also provided Lori with some fond memories of her visit there in 1998.

A circa 200 B.C. Chinese tomb vessel.

This stone sculpture dates to around 564 A.D..

Chinese shadow puppets and masks.

"Lyuba", the most complete woolly mammoth specimen was discovered by reindeer herders in Russia. It is approximately 42,000 years old.

The Tsavo man-eating lions were the subjects of the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness".