OMSI

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

Location within Portland, Oregon
Established	1944
Location	Portland, Oregon, United States
Coordinates	45°30′30″N 122°39′57″W / 45.508415°N 122.665894°W / 45.508415; -122.665894
Type	private: science, industry
Visitors	778,457 (2002)
Director	Nancy Stueber
Public transit access	TriMet MAX Orange Line and bus routes 9 and 17; Portland Streetcar Loop Service
Website	omsi.edu

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI, /ˈɒmziː/ OM-zee) is a science and technology museum in Portland, Oregon, United States. It contains three auditoriums, including a large-screen theatre, planetarium, and exhibition halls with a variety of hands-on permanent exhibits focused on natural sciences, industry, and technology. Transient exhibits span a wider range of disciplines.

Beginning in 1903, odd artifacts were displayed in hallways and alcoves in Portland City Hall arranged by Colonel L. L. Hawkins. When the collection was evicted in 1936, about 12,000 artifacts were stored throughout the city.

On November 5, 1944, the Oregon Museum Foundation was founded with the mission of establishing an Oregon Museum of History, Science, and Industry. It displayed its first collection of natural history objects at the Portland Hotel. Subsequent small exhibits occurred around town to generate interest and donations. In 1949, a house at 908 NE Hassalo was donated to establish the museum. Within a year, the Pacific Northwest's first public planetarium opened in a dome on the front lawn.

By 1955, OMSI's annual attendance had grown to 25,000. The need for expansion led to volunteers building a new site at Washington Park, completing the original goal of a hands-on museum. (That building is now occupied by the Portland Children's Museum.) This opened to the public on August 3, 1958, following a formal dedication by the governor on June 7. A planetarium was again included. The new building at the southwest corner of what was then Hoyt Park (now part of Washington Park) was located adjacent to the then-new site of the Portland Zoo (now the Oregon Zoo), which began a one-year phased move in the same month as the new OMSI opened. The two attractions remained neighbors, sharing a parking lot, until 1992. The planetarium at the Washington Park site was originally a 90-seat facility housed in a temporary dome, but in 1967 it was replaced by a larger, 142-seat facility in a distinctive dodecahedron (12-sided) building equipped with a new projector.