Arkansas State University Museum is located on the Jonesboro campus of Arkansas State University. It holds over 85,000 significant historic, archaeological, and natural history collections hailing primarily from the state of Arkansas. It is the largest and most comprehensive museum in Northeast Arkansas and was one of the first museums in the Southeast to be accredited by the American Association of Museums.
ASU Museum originated in 1933, opening under the name Arkansas State College Historical Museum—a creation of the Arkansas State College History Club. The fledgling museum was accorded prime space in the newly built Wilson Hall, where it mounted its first exhibits in four wooden cases. In 1948, the Museum was incorporated under the name Arkansas State Museum and Historic Library, and the first director was appointed. Through the years the Museum expanded and retracted in numerous buildings, finally relocating in 1980 to the west wing of the Dean B. Ellis Library, where it now presents 16,000 square feet of exhibits.
The Museum specializes in the history and natural history of Northeast Arkansas. Sea fossils and “Mona” the Mastodon tell the story of Arkansas’ fossil past through ca. 10,000 BC. A case of albino animals, one of the oldest exhibits, remains a favorite in the animal kingdom gallery. The new, student-curated exhibition Portals of the Soul celebrates the prehistoric native peoples of Arkansas (10,000 BC–AD 1540), focusing on the achievements and cosmology of the Mississippian people who inhabited our region long before Europeans set foot in the Americas. A children’s exhibit, Arkansas Frontier, brings the European exploration of Arkansas (1540–1840) to life for kids and their families. Artifacts donated by the people of Northeast Arkansas dominate Living off the Land and Old Town Arkansas, which capture the history of early European settlement (ca. 1800–1940) and early town life (1880–1920) in Arkansas.
ASU Museum is a great place for kids. Children can dress up like pioneers, hunt buffalo and deer in a bean-bag toss, meet Pi face-to-face on a wagon-wheel odometer, and compete in games—all while meeting federally mandated learning standards (“Core Curriculum”). Toddlers love HiStory Time every second Saturday, while the Family Reading Castle leads the little ones to reading with favorite Nursery Rhymes. A founding member of the Arkansas Discovery Network funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation 2006, ASU Museum hosts temporary hands-on children’s exhibits designed to support science, technology, engineering, and math and has just opened a Network-funded Tinkering Studio.
Local
See and Do
- Arkansas State University Museum Jonesboro (0.0 miles) - Arkansas State University Museum is located on the Jonesboro campus of Arkansas State University. It...
