On 9/11/01 road crews working in southern Springfield blasted away rock to make a new road. When the dust cleared a hole was visible where there was once a limestone bluff. They had inadvertently stumbled across a cave which had been sealed up well before humans first set foot on the western hemisphere. This was the birth of the Missouri Institute of Natural History. Unique fossils, claw marks, trackways and features have painted a picture of what southern Missouri looked like before man arrived.
The museum is staffed but knowledgeable volunteers and covers hundreds of millions of years of life. From the earliest forms of life to mammals which roamed the area tens of thousands of years ago.
Missouri Institute of Natural History
2327 W Farm Rd 190, Springfield, MO 65810
Mon-Sat: 9a – 4p
Admission: Free
http://www.monatsci.org