{"id":2519,"date":"2026-10-14T02:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T02:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aiadallas.org\/columns\/?p=2519"},"modified":"2026-10-14T04:04:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T04:04:19","slug":"building-an-ark-for-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aiadallas.org\/columns\/building-an-ark-for-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Building an Ark for Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she held the small glass of milk in one hand. Despite its age the green lettering on the glass appeared bright and new against the white milk inside. It read, \u2018Texas Centennial Exposition, 1836-1936, Dallas.\u2019 On the other side of the glass a cowboy on a rearing horse. As she sat quietly in her wheelchair, she looked intently at the book that lay in her lap, turning the pages slowly with her free hand and stopping occasionally to dwell on a photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you remember visiting the museum during the Exposition?\u201d I ask my Aunt Leona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh my, yes!\u201d she replies instantly looking back at me with a noticeable sparkle in her eye. \u201cThe nature displays were my favorite part of the entire fair,\u201d she smiles. \u201cMy brother, Will, was interested in all of the cars,\u201d she laughed, \u201cbut I liked the animals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1936 was a year of realization for the residents of Texas. It was the one-hundredth year after winning independence from Mexico and a time when the world was changing faster than anyone could imagine. One hundred years that had seen a republic become a state. Transportation had changed from horses and oxen and wagons to automobiles and airliners. And the frontier had changed from wilderness to farms and ranches and cities. But in the excitement of change there was also a feeling that there was going to be a great loss of the wild things that had drawn so many people to Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Walt Davis\u2019s book “Building an Ark for Texas: The Evolution of a Natural History Museum<\/a>“, he tells the story of how that sense of impending loss was dawning on the burgeoning urban society in Dallas. And how, in the midst of a celebration of progress, a few dedicated businessmen, educators, scientists and artists worked against time and costs to create a natural history museum in time to display the wild heart of Texas to those who visited the Texas Centennial Exposition<\/a> in 1936 as well as all those who would visit that museum for more than half a century afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walt Davis served as the Curator of Exhibits at the Dallas Museum of History for some twenty-five years before serving as Director of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. Per the dustcover description, \u201cFrom the days when meticulously and skillfully prepared dioramas were the hallmark of natural history museums to the era of blockbuster exhibits and interactive education author Walt Davis traces the changing expectations of and demands on museums, both public and private, through an engaging, personal look back at the creation and development of one exceptional institution, whose building and original exhibits are now protected as historical landmarks at Fair Park in Dallas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dream of creating a museum that records and displays the wildlife of Texas began in the imaginations of Dallas leaders Ed Sewell and Willie Mayer with the donation of some two hundred mounted specimens by adventurer and big game hunter, E. W. Copley in October of 1921. Although Copley\u2019s interests lay in the pursuit of exotic animals in distant lands, Sewell and Mayer felt that the education of the public in the rapidly disappearing nature of Texas should be the goal of the displays in a natural history museum for Dallas. As Davis writes of Sewell\u2019s and Mayer\u2019s idea, \u201cThe museum would focus on Texas. It would deal with all of the state\u2019s plants, animals, and mineral resources. And it would be an educational institution.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Courtesy of DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

On February 26, 1922, the first exhibit of the Texas Museum of Natural History opened to the public in Dallas Fair Park\u2019s original coliseum. During the coming years Ed Sewell worked to raise funding and lead the efforts to build a permanent home for the museum. But his unexpected death after contracting pneumonia in 1926 was a staggering blow to the project. As Davis\u2019s story continues, \u201cEd Sewell spent five years trying to bring the Texas Museum of Natural History to life. His friends spent nine more trying to complete his work, but on the eve of the 1936 Texas Centennial, a dramatic turn of events changed everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dallas Museum of Natural History<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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In 1935, the Dallas park board gave its full support to the museum project and hired naturalist Frederick W. Miller as director of the Dallas Museum of Natural History. Davis writes, \u201cOn Monday morning, October 21, 1935 (F. W. Miller\u2019s first day on the job) the new director of the Dallas Museum of natural History faced a daunting challenge. He had no staff, no collection, no building, with opening day of the Texas Centennial just seven months away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Architects Clyde Griesenbeck, Frank Kean, John Danna and Mark Lemmon were commissioned to design the museum\u2019s building. The project budget was $200,000 and the architect\u2019s design fee was four and a half (4.5) percent. The architects were given ninety days to create the design and prepare contract documents. R. F. Ball Company won the construction contract. The bid with accepted alternates was twenty-six percent over budget! But the construction began. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

At the same time F. W. Miller was working diligently with the Texas Game, Fish and Oyster Commission to find hunters and game wardens to help collect the native specimens of flora and fauna across the state needed for the museum displays. The resulting habitat displays were as much art as scientific exhibits. With the background murals painted by artists Granville Bruce and Olin Travis, replica leaves, flowers and bushes of Plaster of Paris and wax as well as snow replicated with salt by the museum staff combined with taxidermists\u2019 creations from the bears, deer, bison, bobcat and other birds and mammals<\/a> collected by the naturalists in the field the dioramas were developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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