Bozeman Magazine

The Elise R. Donohue Lectures of the American West, In memory of Walter S. Rosenberr, presents The (un)Natural History of William Hornaday’s American Bison Group

Free and open to the public
In 1886, William Hornaday harvested six American Bison from eastern Montana. As chief taxidermist for the Smithsonian Institution, he mounted these specimens and displayed them in the Institution’s main gallery on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as examples of a species of animal that he feared would soon be extinct. Join author Douglas Coffman as he recounts his own search for the history and final home for Hornaday’s bison group; a story that includes several Montana museum collections—including the Museum of the Rockies!