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The University of Colorado Museum of Natural History’s (UCM) paleontology collections were established in 1902 by Junius Henderson, the museum’s first director. Henderson began the UCM collections by donating his personal specimens and gathering others scattered around campus, mostly modern and fossil invertebrates. The collections were expanded through fieldwork in the Rocky Mountains with the University of Colorado (CU) and Colorado Geological Survey. The appointment of Theodore Dru Allison Cockerell to the faculty further enhanced the collections, especially with fossil invertebrates and plants from the Florissant and Green River Formations. Henderson’s global exchanges with foreign scientists and Cockerell’s international travels, including to Russia and Argentina, helped expand the collections breadth worldwide.

Peter Robinson became the first curator of the paleontology collections in 1961. Robinson spent the next five decades managing and creating a worldclass paleontological collection at the UCM. He created an extensive field program focused on early and middle Eocene fossils from the Rocky Mountains, as well as fossils from Tunisia and other North African countries. Judith Harris joined in 1972, revitalizing the teaching and research programs, allowing students and other researchers to work with and examine the paleontology collections. Since its founding, the UCM’s paleontology collections have been unmatched in their breadth of early and middle Eocene fossils from the Rocky Mountain region.

Today, the Paleontology Section continues to focus on research and collection efforts within the Rocky Mountain region and is committed to preserving these specimens using best practice standards in museum curation to ensure their availability for research, teaching, exhibits and community outreach. There are five collections housed in the Paleontology Section: the Karl Hirsch Fossil Eggshell Collection, the Fossil Vertebrate Collection, the Invertebrate Paleontology Collection, the Paleobotany Collection, and the Martin G. Lockley Fossil Track Collection. Data on these specimens is carefully maintained in databases to provide accurate, up-to-date information about their provenance, condition, and status for continued use in research, teaching, and public education.