The Sonoran Desert covers approximately 100,000 square miles of the American Southwest, as well as a portion of northern Mexico. This unique ecological area is the hottest desert on the continent of North America, and is home to many well-loved and easily-recognizable species of plants and animals. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, located in Tucson, Arizona, is one of many protected areas established in the Sonoran Desert to preserve this habitat and its inhabitants.
Establishment of the Desert Museum
William Carr and Arthur Pack founded the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in 1952. Thanks to a $200,000 donation from Pack’s Charles Lathrop Pack Forestry Foundation, the Desert Museum did not initially charge admission when it opened on Labor Day in 1952. Upon its founding and in the years that have followed, the Desert Museum has remained a beacon of inspiration to similar institutions for its unique and integrated preservation and display of native plants and animals.
The Modern Desert Museum
Today, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum remains one of Tucson’s top attractions. It has been favorably ranked by the TripAdvisor website as both a general attraction and a public garden, and has twice been ranked ninth in the world on the site’s “Traveler’s Choice” of top museums. The Desert Museum itself covers an area of 98 acres and contains 16 gardens, 56,000 plants, and 230 animals that include birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and insects. Its most recent addition was the Warden Aquarium, which opened in 2013 and features marine life from both Arizona’s native rivers and the Gulf of California.
This article is part of our blog series, Arizona’s Amazing Roadside Attractions.
