Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals
Logo of the museum
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| Established | 1996 |
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| Location | Hillsboro, Oregon, United States |
| Coordinates | 45°34′28″N 122°56′55″W / 45.5744°N 122.9486°W |
| Type | Earth sciences |
| Visitors | approx. 25,000 (2009) |
| Director | Julian Gray |
| Curator | Leslie Moclock |
| Website | www.ricenorthwestmuseum.org |
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Richard and Helen Rice House
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Front of the home in 2010
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| Coordinates | 45°34′28″N 122°56′55″W / 45.57444°N 122.94861°W |
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| Built | 1952 |
| Architect | William F. Wayman |
| Architectural style | Ranch |
| NRHP Reference # | 06001096 |
| Added to NRHP | November 29, 2006 |
The Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals is a non-profit museum in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Located just north of the Sunset Highway on the northern edge of Hillsboro, the earth science museum is in the Portland metropolitan area. Opened in 1997, the museum’s collections date to the 1930s with the museum housed in a home built to display the rock and mineral collections of the museum founders. The ranch style home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the first of its kind listed in Oregon. In 2015 the museum became a Smithsonian Affiliate museum.
The museum sits on 23 wooded acres (9.3 ha), with the main building containing 7,500 square feet (700 m2) of space. Collections include petrified wood, various fossils, fluorescent minerals, meteorites, zeolites, and a variety of other minerals. With more than 20,000 specimens, the museum is the largest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. The facility has around 25,000 visitors each year, many of whom are on school tours.
Richard L. Rice married Helen Hart in 1932 and the couple began rock collecting in 1938 after finding agates along the Oregon Coast. In 1952 the Rices built a new home north of Hillsboro on 30 acres (12.1 ha) that would later house the museum. The Rices founded a museum in 1953 to display their collections. Their collections won them the Woodruff Trophy twice (1958 and 1961) and this award was permanently awarded to Richard and Helen in 1961. Helen served as president of the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies from 1959 to 1960.
In 1996 the Rices established the non-profit museum. Richard and Helen Rice both died in 1997 with the home passing to the non-profit museum as part of their estate. In 1997 the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals officially opened. In June 2000, 94 pieces from the F. John Barlow collection of crystallized gold were added to the museum. The facility opened an exhibit in 2001 dedicated to the lapidary arts, and by that time the museum had grown to more than 4,000 items.
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