Here’s your gentle, semi-regular reminder that the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) as you know it—the weird, wild, wonderful, cavernous, and charmingly out-of-time museum that has stood at 800 W. Wells St. since 1962—will soon be gone. MPM will close the facility and reinvent itself in a new, currently under-construction location near Fiserv Forum in 2027. So you’ve still got a few years! But yeah, time is running out…

So what better time than now to look back on the history of MPM? On Thursday, October 18, MPM will do just that with a special in-house exhibit titled Groundbreaking: The Evolution of a Natural History Museum. The exhibit will “invite visitors on a journey through the institution’s past, present and future to explore the ways it has changed and grown with its many revolutionary achievements and how this tradition of innovation will continue in its new home.” It will run through January 20, 2025.

“The design and construction of the Museum’s future home has sparked renewed interest both from the public and our staff about MPM’s history and impact,” says MPM President & CEO Dr. Ellen Censky in a press release. “What better way to celebrate this institution’s legacy and build upon the excitement surrounding the new location than to look back on how the Museum has evolved—from its first specimens collected by schoolchildren in the 1850s on field trips to formally becoming a museum in 1882, and now, preserving more than 4 million collections items and serving half a million people annually.”

There’s plenty of self-history to be found in MPM. It was officially chartered in 1882, and its original location opened in 1884. It was home to the world’s first habitat diorama (seen above), created by Carl Akeley. It created one of the first dioramas you could totally just walk around in (the Streets of Old Milwaukee). It was one of the first museums in the world to co-create a Native American exhibit with tribal members. And it has that giant T-rex taking a chomp out of another dinosaur, which, while probably not very scientifically accurate, totally rules.

Also, The Quest For Beaver:


“With each of these ‘firsts,’ MPM took a risk in developing and implementing new methods in research, education and preservation that had never been done in the museum world,” says Amanda Kopp, MPM Collections Interpretation Manager, in the press release. “Each innovation was prompted, in part, by changes happening in society. As we begin to transition to our new home, it’s important to understand that MPM and museums in general are ever-evolving—physically and conceptually—to reflect the larger scientific, technological and cultural shifts occurring in the world.”

Photo: Milwaukee Public Museum

According to MPM, its so-called Future Museum “will continue MPM’s groundbreaking legacy by building an iconic building with architectural features inspired by Wisconsin’s geological landscape and the confluence of Milwaukee’s three rivers, and in designing exhibits that feature storylines and artifacts developed in consultation with members of origin communities—cultures from which the objects originated.”

Many Future Museum exhibits have already been previewed, including a Streets of Old Milwaukee successor called Milwaukee Revealed. And yeah, they’re totally going to have a new Snake Button. You can read our extensive MPM coverage below.

Rendering of MPM’s Future Museum

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