Earlier this year, University of Utah geology professor Marjorie Chan was giving a speech at Illinois State University when she told her host, Dave Malone, about her interest in Western Americana and her desire to visit area antique shops.
Instead, Chan was shown the contents of a closet in the school’s geology building. Tucked inside were 150-year-old Native American baskets and apparel collected by the famed John Wesley Powell while exploring Utah.
Now these items are back home, part of the Utah museum’s vast anthology collections. The museum will put them on display for a one-day event Sept.