page_title: Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals / History
caption_attribution_description: Fossil of a w:Psittacosaurus at the w:Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals in w:Hillsboro, Oregon.
context_page_description: The Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals is a non-profit museum in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Located just north of the Sunset Highway on the northern edge of Hillsboro, the earth science museum is in the Portland metropolitan area. Opened in 1997, the museum's collections date to the 1930s with the museum housed in a home built to display the rock and mineral collections of the museum founders. The ranch style home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the first of its kind listed in Oregon. In 2015 the museum became a Smithsonian Affiliate museum.
  The museum sits on 23 wooded acres, with the main building containing 7,500 square feet of space. Collections include petrified wood, various fossils, fluorescent minerals, meteorites, zeolites, and a variety of other minerals. With more than 20,000 specimens, the museum is the largest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. The facility has around 25,000 visitors each year, many of whom are on school tours.
context_section_description: Richard L. Rice married Helen Hart in 1932 and the couple began rock collecting in 1938 after finding agates along the Oregon Coast. In 1952 the Rices built a new home north of Hillsboro on 30 acres (12.1 ha) that would later house the museum. The Rices founded a museum in 1953 to display their collections. Their collections won them the Woodruff Trophy twice (1958 and 1961) and this award was permanently awarded to Richard and Helen in 1961. Helen served as president of the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies from 1959 to 1960.
  In 1996 the Rices established the non-profit museum. Richard and Helen Rice both died in 1997 with the home passing to the non-profit museum as part of their estate. In 1997 the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals officially opened. In June 2000, 94 pieces from the F. John Barlow collection of crystallized gold were added to the museum. The facility opened an exhibit in 2001 dedicated to the lapidary arts, and by that time the museum had grown to more than 4,000 items.
  The museum opened a new gallery in January 2003 to feature petrified wood. Rudy W. Tschernich was named curator in June 2003, replacing Sharleen Harvey. In 2004 the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory at Portland State University loaned the museum 52 meteorites in an exhibit funded by NASA. Attendance had grown to around 15,000 in 2004.
  In 2005 the North America Research Group unearthed the fossilized remains of a thalattosuchian crocodile from the Jurassic period in Central Oregon. The museum plans on displaying these fossils after they are studied. Later in 2005, the 1,800-square-foot (170 m²) Northwest Minerals Gallery opened in a former storeroom at the museum after renovations totaling $150,000.
  By 2007 the museum received 25,000 visitors each year, mainly from school groups. In August 2008 the museum opened a retail gift shop in The Streets of Tanasbourne shopping center, and closed it in December 2009 due to the economic recession. This satellite gift shop was to be a temporary endeavor, and was designed in part to help drive traffic to the museum. By 2010 the museum's collections had grown to more than 20,000 specimens, and still had about 25,000 visitors annually, with about 18,000 coming from school field trips. Tschernich stepped down as curator in 2011, with Lara O'Dwyer-Brown taking over the position in 2012. Brown left in 2014, with Julian Gray hired as executive director and Leslie Moclock as curator in May 2014. Leslie Moclock left the museum in 2018, and Julian Gray resigned to take over the curator position. Garret Romaine was named the executive director on an interim basis pending the hire of a new director, scheduled for 2020.
caption: Psittacosaurus fossil
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