A new museum on Utah’s Capitol Hill will be the first dedicated to celebrating the state’s history and culture.
The Utah Museum opens Saturday at 9 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting and a free daylong celebration.
Museum Director Tim Glenn says it features 17,000 square feet of exhibition space that will house four primary galleries: Inspiring Utah, Building Utah, Becoming Utah, and Connecting Utah. Also included in the museum is 1,500 square feet of temporary exhibition space for rotating themed displays.
He says that while the museum is billed as a place to learn about Utah’s history, it’s also rich with art and culture.
More than 100 fine art pieces from the state’s Alice Merrill Horne Fine Art and Folk Art collections will be on display. Nearly 1,000 artifacts from the Utah Historical Society’s collection are also part of the exhibits.
Among the more unique items visitors can see is a pink western-style shirt worn by the character Marty McFly in “Back to the Future III,” filmed in Monument Valley in 1989.
Other items of interest include a rare piece of Deseret currency, a monetary system established in the 1850s by Latter-day Saint pioneers to address cash shortages in what was then the Utah Territory.
Glenn says there’s also a set of tools that belonged to architect Walter Ware, who opened his Salt Lake City firm in 1891 and built many of the Utah buildings now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Saturday’s free events include performances by artists, musicians and poets. Food trucks will also be on site. The festivities run through 8 p.m.