09/05/2026
From the September issue: Walt Davis, an 84-year-old CC Young Senior Living resident, oversaw the creation of a handful of the nearly 50 dioramas at Dallas Museum of Natural History, which were built from the mid-1930s until 1978. Scenes from nine out of 10 of Texas’ ecological regions are shown, and coyotes, wolves, elk, deer, otters, foxes, various birds, wildcats, and bears are on display via taxidermy.
“They can see things that are disappearing,” says Davis, when asked what younger generations can gain by viewing the historical dioramas. “They’re not going to walk into the Trinity Forest and see an ivory-billed woodpecker. You can see one here from the Trinity Forest. So it is a record of change. And I would hope that it enables people to take action to preserve some of what was originally here. It’s the original Texas.”
The museum itself, which opened in 1936 and has been closed for years, is also an artifact of Dallas’s past. It was merged with The Science Place and the Dallas Children’s Museum to make the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in 2006. Collections were taken, and dioramas were left. Now, Thanks to volunteers staffing the museum, the dioramas are on display for the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays.
https://lakewood.advocatemag.com/fair-park-historic-wildlife-dioramas-are-back-on-view/
📷️ 1: “If you were interviewing the people who built these exhibits, we’d have a roomful,” Walt Davis says of the historic wildlife dioramas in Fair Park. “Many of them we don’t have records of even the names.” Portrait by
📷️ 2: Director and curatorial staff of the museum, (standing) Hal Kirby, Chuck Finsley, Wayne Seifert, Steve Runnels, Walt Davis and Lane Howard, (seated) Bill Wilson and Richard Fullington, ca. 1970. Courtesy of Building an Ark for Texas: The Evolution of a Natural History Museum.
📷️ 3: The dioramas of the Dallas Museum of Natural History are finally seeing the light of day after 14 years in the dark. Photo by
