Natural History Museum will celebrate 125th year of Panorama

LAWRENCE – After its six-month run ended, the creators of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago dismantled the 65,000 temporary displays that had attracted more than 21 million visitors.

But one of the most popular exhibits of that World’s Fair endured far longer than its designer could have imagined: This year, Lewis Lindsay Dyche’s Panorama turns 125 years old at the KU Natural History Museum.

To celebrate the anniversary, the museum is offering a new exhibit and a series of Panorama-themed events.

The new exhibit, opening Saturday, June 23, includes artifacts and photographs from the University of Kansas Archives and items provided by the descendants of one of Dyche’s assistants, Charles “Pug” Saunders.

In 1893, Dyche, Saunders, E.D. Eames and W.W. Wyland created a wildlife scene with 121 mammals for the Kansas building at the fair. Presenting animals in a realistic setting was unusual at the time and brought attention to North American animals and their habitats during an era when movies and television nature shows did not exist.

When the exhibit returned to KU at the conclusion of the fair, there was no place to display it. Dyche Hall, completed in 1903, was built to feature the exhibit on the main floor, where it remains today. It has been expanded over the ensuing decades to include the tropics and the Arctic.

“The Panorama is an American cultural treasure,” said Leonard Krishtalka, director of the KU Biodiversity Institute. “It brought Kansas to the world at the fair and then brought the world back to Kansas.”

Events to mark the exhibit’s anniversary include:

Through A Glass Wildly, July 11 at 6:30 p.m., a celebration of the Panorama featuring the poetry of Elizabeth Schultz, KU professor emerita of English.

Discovery Day: Panorama, 1-3 p.m. July 22, an event for families featuring museum mammals, games and activities.

Panorama 125 at 2 p.m. Aug. 17, welcoming KU students to campus and featuring Cracker Jacks, the American snack that premiered at the fair.

Magic Lantern Revisited, 7 p.m. Sept. 20, a special event to be held in South Park in downtown Lawrence featuring images Dyche used in public lectures at the turn of the last century.

Event details and tickets available at biodiversity.ku.edu. 

Photo: Panorama as it looked in 1893, courtesy University of Kansas Archives.