Wednesday, June 18, 2025
A new Museum of Utah on Capitol Hill is scheduled to welcome visitors next spring.
Urban Living
Posted By Babs De Lay on June 18, 2025, 4:00 AM
Thinking of not traveling outside of the state this summer for a vaycay? Rather stick around for a staycay and maybe explore what we have here in the state?
Utah has over 260 museums covering a range of topics, from art to culture, history and science. There's a ski museum in Park City, a science museum in Provo, the mining visitor center at Rio Tinto's mine, the classic car museum in Ogden and a ton of historic buildings around the state that have become museums, like the Camp Floyd Stagecoach Inn located in Fairfield, the Chieftain in Santaquin and big and small museums throughout the state.
The Daughters of Utah Pioneers have over 80 satellite museums in our borders—all of which are free to visit. The state's largest and most-visited museum is next to Red Butte Garden—the Natural History Museum, with over 163,000 square feet of exhibits of archaeology, botany and paleontology. If you travel up to the State Capitol building in Salt Lake City, you can visit the main Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum just west of the state building. And inside the capitol there are many exhibits that are also free to visit.
The biggest news in museums, though, is the upcoming Museum of Utah, which will officially become the first state history museum, celebrating our unique history, culture and art through world-class exhibits. It is currently being built directly behind the Capitol building and will share the space with Utah legislators when completed in 2026.
The new museum with have four permanent galleries: "Becoming Utah," which will explore the people who have always been here and our unique history of statehood; "Inspiring Utah," which will highlight our state's distinctive achievements, attractions and innovations; "Connecting Utah," which illustrates Utah's sense of community, character and thriving culture; and "Building Utah," which honors the works of Utahns in its many forms—from agriculture and mining to homemaking and railroad building.
All of this is being brought to the world by the Utah Historical Society, which has a massive collection of precious and unique objects and artwork from our past that will rotate through the museum over future years and can be stored there as well.
Unique artifacts owned by the UHS include the Shipler Collection of photographs, considered the best and most significant photographic collection in the state, the Ellis Shipp anatomical chart, which belonged to one of Utah's first female doctors, the Carbon County Cookbook from the 1920s, Sanborn Maps and City Directories, rare Utah films documenting things like river rafting, skiing and parades, and digitized copies of most of the state's various newspapers, and artifacts of textiles, housewares, farming, mining and the military.
The new museum opens in the spring of next year and will be free to the public.
About The Author
Babs De Lay
A full-time broker/owner of Urban Utah Homes and Estates, Babs De Lay serves on the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission. A writer and golfer, you'll find them working as a staff guardian at the Temple at Burning Man each year.
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