Hutchings Museum of Natural and Cultural History

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Address: 55 N Center St. Lehi, UT

• John Hutchings was born in Lehi on 11 March 1889 to William L. and Mary Wanlass Hutchings.

• As a young boy, John displayed a keen curiosity in natural history.

• John Hutchings donated his entire collection to a "non-political, non-profit corporation" which would be named the John Hutchings Museum of Natural History.

• A 6,350 sq ft building was completed on September 2, 1968.

Encouraged by a supportive mother, by age five he was collecting Indian artifacts and other items that captured his fancy. Hutchings’ collecting hobby became a life-long passion — which was fortunately shared by his wife Eunice and their children. After retiring from the post office in 1948 John and Eunice devoted virtually all their time to caring for and adding to their collection. Only about 20 percent of the more than 150,000 items on their property could be displayed, so the Hutchings decided to take the steps necessary to make the items more accessible to the public. The Lehi Lions Club announced in the 1 April 1954 Lehi Free Press that a tentative agreement had been reached with John Hutchings to donate his entire collection to a "non-political, non-profit corporation" which would be named the John Hutchings Museum of Natural History.

Plans for the new museum building were drawn by architect Lorenzo S. Young in 1956. The design of the nearly 5,000-square-feet facility included five large display rooms, preparation and storage rooms, an information office, and restrooms. Under the direction of Board of Trustees, President Raymond H. Stewart, groundbreaking ceremonies for a thirteen-hundred-fifty-square-feet addition to the museum were held on 2 September 1968. Completed the following year, this new portion was initially used to store items still at the Hutchings' residence but was soon converted into display space.

Burglars struck at the museum in the early hours of 1 July 1975. The thieves gained entry by forcing a lock on the west entrance, cutting a chain, and then disabling the alarm. The intruders had apparently cased the museum beforehand and knew precisely what to steal. Valuable and quickly marketable items such as precious and semi-precious gems, gold, silver, and platinum specimens, pearls, ancient Chinese vases, jade, ivory, and soapstone carvings were missing. Also gone were the rarest guns in the weapons collection. Within a month Lehi Police Chief, Berl Peterson, reported the arrest of Donald M. Passborg in Salt Lake City. But with the exception of the weapons, most of the stolen items were never recovered. Because the guns were required for evidence in the case, the Lehi police department was not successful in having them returned to the museum until the spring of 1977.