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Show ASSOCIATION Clipping Service (801) 328-8678 PROVO DAILY HERALD . ,, I I , \ Natural selection: Bud Hutchings, director of the Hutchings Museum in Lehi, stands beside part of the mu~eum's bottle collection. i Collector :-tiew home for Hutchings Museum }: By JOSEPHINE ZIMMERMAN The Daily Herald LEHI - The Hutchings Natural History Museum is now in larger quarters at the old Lehi City Hall, but even that structure isn't large enough to hold all of the incredible collection accumulated by Lehi's John Hutchings during his lifetime. The museum, now located in Lehi's Memorial Building, 55 N. Center St'L contains an -amazing collection of treasures from nature and artifacts of the American West. It is open to visitors six days a week. Hutchings was born in 1889 with an unsatiable curiosity. As a boy of 12 he worked in a gold mine at Scranton, a min~own that once existed near Fairfield. There he began his collection of rocks and minerals. He worked as a miner and later as a mail carrier, while at the same time accumulating his amazing collection of rocks and minerals, Native American artifacts, fossils, reptiles, corals and seashells, marine life, bird life, historic paintings and photographs, sculpture, and artifacts of Western history. Rock solid collections During his lifetime, he set the goal of acquiring a sample of every known rock and mineral in its natural state. His son John "Bud" Hutchings, a curator filling in for his brother Harold, said his father achieved that goal. The museum houses an exceptional collection from the Bingham mines, including copper, gold, silver, lead, molybdenum and calcanthite. Rare and unmatched are specimens of varacite, vivianite, US-alite (which he found and named), selenite with water inclusion, and crystal aluminum. The sealed display cases also have uncut gems, including beryl, sapphire, opal, garnet, topaz, turquoise, herkimer diamonds and kunzite. For those caught up in the current crystal fad, the collection of crystals is a must see. Rare items have been donated imd loaned to such institutions as the Smithsoriian and New York's American Museum of Natural History. He also received licenses from the U.S. government and State of Utah to collect birds eggs. He made several collections of the eggs of every bird known to the West. One set of eggs is now housed in the Lehi museum, while others are located in some of the nation's most famous museums. See HUTCHINGS, C4 " 1" 3 t t t· |
