Logan Museum of Anthropology records

The museums of Beloit College were born in 1848, when Rev. Stephen Peet, one of the founders of the College, donated his mineral collection, which became the nucleus of the College's "Cabinet." It was common practice in 1840s for Eastern Colleges to develop geology and natural history cabinets of specimens to augment textbooks. Beloit College was no exception to this trend. The Cabinet collection was housed in Middle College from 1849 to 1869.

The collection moved to Memorial Hall, when that building was completed in 1869. Memorial Hall was built to commemorate the men of Beloit who perished in the Civil War. By the 1890s the Cabinet collection had grown to contain more than 4,000 specimens, including 900 mounted animal specimens. In 1893 the Cabinet collection was moved to Pearsons Hall of Science. It remained there until 1903, when it was dispersed to appropriate departments on campus.

In 1892 Frank Logan, a wealthy Chicago grain merchant, purchased a collection of around 3,000 Native American archaeological and ethnographic objects for $15,000. Logan bought the collection from Horatio Nelson Rust, a traveling salesman, Indian agent, and collector of Native American antiquities. Logan arranged for Rust to exhibit the collection for him at Chicago's 1893 World Columbian Exposition, where it was exhibited in the Anthropology Building. The Collection was awarded first prize among the archaeological exhibits.

Frank Logan and his wife, Josephine Hancock Logan, became interested in Beloit College through their friend and minister, Dr. Frank Gunsaulus, a Congregational minister in Chicago and a frequent visitor to Beloit College where he lectured in history in 1887-88. In 1893 Frank Logan was appointed to the Beloit College Board of Trustees, and he donated the Rust Collection the same year. The College formally accepted the Rust-Logan Collection at the semi-annual meeting of the Board of Trustees on January 15, 1894.

From 1893 to1905 the Rust collection was exhibited on the second floor of Pearsons Hall of Science. In 1905 Memorial Hall was redecorated and greatly improved to house the expanding Logan Museum. Prior to 1905 Memorial Hall was home to the College's library. The Logan Museum expanded to the second floor of Memorial Hall in 1911 when the Music Department moved out.

Promoting engaged learning about cultures has formed the primary focus and intent of the Museum since its inception in 1893. Frank Logan insisted on the educational use of the collections, and desired to see the artifacts utilized in teaching students about "primitive life." By 1923 laboratory and classroom spaces were added to the Museum to provide teaching facilities. In 1924 Logan established the George Collie Foundation in Anthropology as a tribute to the founding of the College's Department of Anthropology and George Collie being named as its Chair. The Logan Museum has been intimately connected to the Anthropology Department and faculty positions often involved curatorial and directorial appointments.

With the establishment of the Museum Studies minor in 1982-83, the Museum's role as a teaching museum was expanded even further. Beloit College students are still actively involved in field expeditions, research on the collections, and the development and installation of museum exhibitions, both at the Logan Museum and the Wright Museum of Art.