Greeley History Museum

The City of Greeleys Museums trace their origins back to the 1870s. On December 7, 1870 Nathan C. Meeker, Greeleys founder, suggested to the townspeople the following: Now, while we are daily exploring the prairies, mountains and streams and even bringing up the buried treasures of the ages from the ground beneath us, we hope that our people will b... ear in mind the fact that we are organizing a museum for the benefit of the whole colony and whenever anything appropriate may be found, let it be placed among our common treasures and we will soon have a collection that will be both instructive and entertaining. Bring specimens of fossils, petrification, minerals and even birds and small animals, which will be properly prepared. Many of our people have rare articles which they have expressed a wish to donate so that it could be cared for. A room has now been appropriated for this purpose in connection with the Reading Room by the trustees and it will be placed in the hands of competent persons for the classification of all donations. Today, the purpose of the City of Greeley Museums remains essentially the same: to collect, preserve, interpret and share the history of northeastern Colorado. The Meeker Home, built in 1870, is a unique adobe two-story austere home, originally built to house the City of Greeleys founding family. Nathan Cook Meeker, his wife Arvilla Delight and their three daughters: Mary, Rozene and Josephine, lived there. In 1929, Greeley residents organized and purchased the Meeker home to be Greeleys first official museum. Within a few decades the Meeker Home Museum was too small to house the artifacts, photographs and documents that were collected. The Greeley Municipal Museum was created in 1968 in what was to become the Lincoln Park Library in downtown Greeley. Just over one hundred years after the Meeker home was built, citizens of Weld County began work to acquire local historical structures to create an open air museum. Its original focus was to tell the tales of the determination and bravery ...Read More