Colorado Museum of Natural History, Secretary of the Board of Trustees records 1897-1947.

ArchivalResource

Colorado Museum of Natural History. Colorado Museum of Natural History, Secretary of the Board of Trustees records 1897-1947.

Colorado Museum of Natural History, Secretary of the Board of Trustees records 1897-1947.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/68967575

This collection, contained in one 2.5 x 15.5 x 10-inch box, contains 22 file folders housing correspondence and other documents relating to work done for the museum by Elmer W. Merritt and Persifor M. Cooke. Merritt and Cooke were the first two Secretaries of the Board of Trustees of the Colorado Museum of Natural History, now the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Merritt served in the office from 1897 to 1902. Cooke took over from 1902 to 1931. He later served as Secretary-Treasurer from 1936 to 1945, and again as Secretary in 1946 and 1947. Many of the papers in the collection, dating from 1897 to 1947, document the events of the Museum's earliest days. Among the documents are a typewritten letter to Merritt dated September 2, 1897, from John H. Winser, Secretary and Assistant Treasurer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Winser offered to share "any information as to our system of casing" and called it "very gratifying to learn that you have in process the creation of a natural history Museum in Denver."₄ The collection also contains a 1901 telegram from Merritt to John F. Campion regarding the donation of the Carter collection, along with other letters discussing the same collection, and various pieces of correspondence discussing the erection of the museum building in Denver's City Park and purchases relating to its roof, turnstiles, and other furnishings and finishing elements.

1 box.

Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Alfred M. Bailey Library