Small Museum - open by appointment

Big Stories - online

Welcome to the new Moab Museum:

We are thrilled to be able to invite Members and the general community to the Museum for appointment-only visits through November 13th. This will be a special opportunity to see the temporary exhibit, Howard Balsley: A Life on Paper, which will be on display until mid-November.

Out of an abundance of caution and concern for our community, we will be implementing a variety of measures to promote social distancing and ensure compliance with local COVID-19 regulations and recommendations, including asking visitors to limit their stay to one hour. We are accepting appointments for one group of ten or fewer people at a time from Tuesday through Friday from 3-8pm, plus from 9am-12pm on Wednesdays. To make an appointment, please call (435) 355-0918 or email info@moabmuseum.org.

We also invite you to explore the Museum’s diverse stories and collections here on our website, where we will be adding more Big Stories regularly.

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Watch for new images on Instagram

Coming Up:

Tuesdays with the Museum

A live storytelling & events series held on Zoom and simultaneously broadcast using Facebook Live. Events will begin at 6:30pm. These events are free and open to the general public.

27 October, 2020
Tuesday

Air Mail: An Exchange Between Authors

6:30 pm
Local Time
Date: Oct 27 2020
Time: 8:30 pm
View Detail
03 November, 2020
Tuesday

My Canyonlands: Film Screening and Discussion

6:30 pm
Local Time
Date: Nov 03 2020
Time: 8:30 pm
View Detail
17 November, 2020
Tuesday

The Arch-Flying Cowboy: Stories from Tim Martin

6:30 pm
Local Time
Date: Nov 17 2020
Time: 8:30 pm
View Detail

The Story of the Moab Museum

As Moab prospered in the late 1950s, civic leaders decided to establish a museum where locals and visitors could learn about the landscape, earliest life forms, indigenous peoples, pioneers, and prospectors. The Women’s Literary Club established the Southeastern Utah Society of Arts and Science as a nonprofit corporation in 1957 under which the Museum opened. A county facility became the Museum’s first home and featured the archeological collections of Dr. J.W. “Doc” Williams and Ross Musselman. By the mid-1980s, businessman and philanthropist Dan O’Laurie helped fund and construct the Museum’s current home that is named in his honor. Today’s Moab Museum remains a small museum with big stories.

Read more about the museum history

Just Added:

Oral Histories

Kent & Fern Frost

Kent & Fern Frost

Mitch Williams

Mitch Williams

Rolly Thompson

Rolly Thompson

Dorothy Rossignol

Dorothy Rossignol

Harold Provonsha

Harold Provonsha

Billie Provonsha

Billie Provonsha

Donna & Dale Oviatt

Donna & Dale Oviatt

Mel & Ida Dalton

Mel & Ida Dalton

Bill Meador

Bill Meador

Ferne Mullen

Ferne Mullen

Clara Shafer

Clara Shafer

Deone Skewes

Deone Skewes

Ruby Zufelt

Ruby Zufelt

Pancho & Elsie Tabberer

Pancho & Elsie Tabberer

Pete Byrd

Pete Byrd

Jack West

Jack West

Edd & Isabelle Provonsha

Edd & Isabelle Provonsha

Lloyd Pierson

Lloyd Pierson

Merv Lawton

Merv Lawton

John & Mary Keogh

John & Mary Keogh

Norma Blakenagel

Norma Blakenagel

Audry McDougald

Audry McDougald

Sam Taylor

Sam Taylor

Bill & Inalyn Meador

Bill & Inalyn Meador

Maxine Newell & George Andersen

Maxine Newell & George Andersen

Banjo & Marion Holloway

Banjo & Marion Holloway

Bill McDougald

Bill McDougald

See the Oral Histories

The Storylines:

The People. The Land. Today. Tomorrow

The People: Profiles

Lydia Taylor Skewes

“My people came to the little Grand Valley in wagons and forded the Colorado River, and I’ve flown in jet planes.” A daughter of one of the earliest families to settle in Moab, Lydia Skewes grew up watching Moab grow up...

See more People Profiles

Hidden Valley load basket

The basket dates to 885-1020 A.D. and likely was used by Ancestral Puebloans to carry items such as food and small children.

Read More

Buck Rogers Geiger counter

By the 1960s, radiation detection technology had advanced to produce an updated version of the 1950s Babbel Model 600A.

Read about the Uranium Boom

Wiren Femur

These hind leg bones belonged to a possibly 70-foot long sauropod weighing more than 25 tons. The femur had been buried in an ancient river deposit and migrated to water level in a modern river.

More about the femur

100 Million Years ago

At this time in the Cretaceous Period, much of western North America was inundated with a large seaway. Portions of the Colorado Plateau were repeatedly underwater during Earth’s long geologic history, as we see from the sediments and aquatic fossils preserved throughout the region.

See the paleogeologic maps