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“In the early 1900s, the Kansas-born paleontologist Barnum Brown discovered the first Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton while in Montana…”

Excerpt: “Boston-based Verner Johnson was executive and design architect for the Museum at Prairiefire. The 41,000-square-foot (3,800 sq m) facility has an exhibition gallery for touring exhibits, a children’s Discovery Room, a lobby, a café, a gift shop, event and exhibit support spaces, classrooms, and administrative offices. The building takes its design cues from the tallgrass prairies of Kansas and the prairie fire burns that occur there. The project included preserving wetlands surrounding the museum and creating hiking and biking trails, sunflower and butterfly gardens, and interpretative signs about Midwestern prairies and wetlands and the history of Kansas.

The project has done well since its opening. The museum has signed up three times as many members as projected for its first year—3,500 in 11 months. The museum was expected to be a regional draw, but it has pulled visitors from a much wider area, covering more than 1,600 zip codes from all 50 states, according to museum records, as well as Canada, Europe, and Asia. Paying visitors in the museum’s first six months numbered 100,000.”