By WKTV Staff
joanne@wktv.org
Many people who visited the former Grand Rapids Public Museum’s home on Jefferson may remember the Moorland Mastodon.
The almost complete mastodon was found on a farm in Moorland, Michigan in 1904. The Kent Scientific Museum of Grand Rapids (now the Grand Rapids Public Museum) acquired the mastodon for $75 with the goal of putting it on display at the museum. According to a 1940 Grand Rapids Herald article, the skeleton measured “18 feet long, 10 feet high and 6 feet wide, with the tusks themselves being nearly 6 feet in length.”
When the museum moved to its current location, the mastodon was not moved over as it was starting to deteriorate, said GRPM Science Curator Dr. Cory Redman.
Instead, the bones were transferred to the museum’s collections, where it was dismantled so as it could be preserved for future generations to look at and study.
In this segment about the museum’s collections, Redman discusses the importance of the preservation work being done, some of which is to correct past-museum practices, and the techniques being used.
Only about 10 percent of the museum’s collection is on display with the rest housed in the museum’s collections facility. The museum has about 250,000 items in its collection. To see some of those items or to learn more, visit grpmcollections.org.
