Museum of Natural and Cultural History

UO's natural history museum, with the oldest shoes in the world

Address 1680 E 15th Avenue

The University of Oregon's natural history museum sits on the east side of campus and packs a lot into a small building: dinosaur skulls, Pacific Northwest archaeology, ethnographic collections of the Indigenous peoples of the region, and case after case of basketry. The standout artefact is the case of Fort Rock sandals — woven sagebrush-bark sandals, over 9,000 years old, the oldest dated shoes ever found.

Allow 60–90 minutes. Modest admission; free on the first Friday of the month. A useful complement to the Schnitzer for a rainy afternoon on campus.

things to do museum
A story
In 1938 archaeologist Luther Cressman pulled dozens of sagebrush-bark sandals out of a layer of pumice ash at Fort Rock Cave in central Oregon. Subsequent radiocarbon dating put them at over 9,000 years old — at the time the oldest dated shoes in the world. Several are on display here.