MySpace BackgroundsFrederick Augustus Olds, known as the “father†of the North Carolina Museum of History, began collecting items from across North Carolina in the late-1800s. He traversed the state, acquiring pieces of the past and the stories associated with them. Some of the objects dated back to great events in the Tarheel State’s history while others could be seen as rather strange (one item was simply labeled a “box of rocksâ€). He amassed a large private collection and on December 5, 1902 he merged his items with the collection owned and displayed in the State Museum (the modern-day North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences). This assortment of historical artifacts became known as the "Hall of History" and was opened to the public. Thirty-seven cases contained everything from a studded shoe buckle owned by James Iredell to the death mask of Confederate General Robert Hoke.The North Carolina Historical Commission took over the Hall of History in 1914 and moved the collection to the Ruffin Building; however, this space quickly became limited. The hall made another move in 1939 to the Education Building, where an area was specifically designed to accommodate both artifacts and exhibits. With the continued growth of the collection, the expanded exhibit space, and an increase in staff, it was decided on July 1, 1965, that the Hall of History would be renamed the North Carolina Museum of History. The museum moved to the Archives and History/State Library Building in 1968. In 1973 the museum opened to the public and soon became a landmark for visitors to Raleigh.Finally, on June 16, 1988, the State of North Carolina broke ground at 5 East Edenton Street to begin construction of a new building. Symbolically placed between the old North Carolina State Capitol and the new Legislative Building, the museum’s permanent home was completed in 1994. For more than $29 million, the new building featured a research library, classrooms, a 315-seat auditorium, a design shop, conservation labs, artifact storage space, offices, the Museum Shop, and 55,000 square feet of exhibit space.