William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum

The foundations of the modern Spurlock Museum can be traced back to 1911, when the University established the Museum of Classical Archaeology and Art and the Museum of European Culture. These were joined in 1917 by the Oriental Museum, which merged with Classical Archaeology and Art in 1929. In 1954 the Museum of European Culture joined with the merged Classical and Oriental Museum to form a single museum, which was renamed the World Heritage Museum in 1971. [1]

From its beginnings in 1911, the museum in its various forms had operated out of a space on the fourth floor of Lincoln Hall. In 1995 a donation by William and Clarice Spurlock laid the groundwork for a new building to be constructed to house the museum and its ever-growing collections. On September 26, 2002, the William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum was dedicated, along with the A. R. Knight Auditorium, the Rowe Multipurpose Learning Center, and the World Heritage Museum Guild Educational Resource Center, [2] marking the dawn of a new era in the museum's existence.

The size and age of the museum's collections made the task of moving them from Lincoln Hall to the new building one of epic magnitude. The first complete inventory of the museum's holdings since 1972 was conducted before any items moved, with more than 150 fields of information on each item being recorded. To actually pack the more than 30,000 items, it took an army of 35 undergraduate students 2 years using 10,000 cubic feet of Styrofoam peanuts and 1,785 boxes and 144 crates. The actual move took just 4 days. [3]