Treasures, historic artifacts and scientific specimens
Last summer, Cincinnati Museum Center (CMC) made a major investment in the future of the organization by securing the region’s past. CMC has purchased and will begin adapting property near Union Terminal to preserve, share and learn from the region’s natural and cultural history. The former Heidelberg Distributing facility on Dalton Avenue is now The Vontz Family Education, Research and Collections Center. The state-of-the-art facility will offer more efficient access to the museum’s collections and will allow the museum to consolidate treasures from the multiple facilities currently housing them.
Did you know that CMC cares for over six million historic artifacts and scientific specimens cataloged into over a dozen collections, including both vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, zoology, mineralogy, archaeology, history objects, fine art, manuscripts, moving images and photographs. Among those treasures, CMC boasts the world’s largest and finest collection of Ordovician fossils from over 420 million years ago, the world’s largest collection of sauropod dinosaur skulls – both critical to ongoing scientific research – and the most complete collection of photographs from Cincinnati-based Black photographer and abolitionist J.P. Ball. The region’s treasures within CMC’s collections also include objects with national and global significance, including a July 9, 1776 printing of the Declaration of Independence known as the Holt Broadside – one of only five surviving copies – and the remains of the last living great auk.
Annually, CMC welcomes over 1,000 research visits from local students to international researchers, local genealogists to amateur historians. Another 8,000 benefit from online collections portal searches. CMC also loans dozens of collections items out each year to museums across the globe, demonstrating the global impact of Cincinnati’s local stories.
Together, these efforts reflect Cincinnati Museum Center’s unwavering commitment to preserving, studying, and sharing the region’s stories—stories that resonate far beyond the Queen City, connecting local heritage to global history and inspiring generations of learners, researchers, and community members. The new Vontz Family Education, Research and Collections Center is a vital step in that mission, providing the space, technology and accessibility needed to care for these irreplaceable collections and ensure they remain a resource for discovery and inspiration for decades to come.
