Museum gives glimpse at different eras of history

Patricia Welker, the administrator of the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History in Marble Hill, points out a giant beaver skull in one of the museum's exhibits. Mark Blanton, Staff

MARBLE HILL -- Displaying artifacts from the dinosaurs to the Civil War, the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History offers exhibits from many different eras in history.

"We're a very interesting and educational place," said Patricia Welker, the museum's administrator.

On its second floor, the museum features a life size model of a hadrosaur, or "duck- billed" dinosaur. The model represents the remains of a dinosaur found in Bollinger County, said Welker. Part of a species named hypsibema missouriensis, it was designated as the state's official dinosaur species, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

The dinosaur's remains were originally found in 1942 by geologist Dan Stewart, now known as "Dinosaur Dan," while examining clay deposits, according to the BCMNH.

He later took the remains to an expert at the Smithsonian Institution in 1945, who said that they were probably the remains of a sauropod.

However, later examinations in the 1980s by other experts instead identified the remains as those of a hadrosaur, according to the BCMNH.

The second floor also features a replica Ice Age hut, various taxidermic Alaskan animals and an exhibit from when the Ah-Ni-Yv-Wi-Ya, or Cherokee tribe, passed through Bollinger County on the Trail of Tears.

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