A wish for this special season: South Dakota should retain the Brockhouse taxidermy collection
It’s encouraging, to a degree, that the best animal mounts in the Brockhouse taxidermy collection in Sioux Falls could be headed to prestigious museums and galleries around the United States.
The fascinating collection, which includes some now-endangered animals, had been on display in a museum in Sioux Falls for about 40 years and, before that, in a large hardware store.
The prospect of the collection going in pieces to other states for restoration and display is also sad.
The collection belongs in a museum in South Dakota. If not at its most recent home, the Delbridge Museum of Natural History in Sioux Falls, then perhaps on the campus of South Dakota State University in Brookings, which has academic programs in wildlife, fisheries and animal sciences, or at some other university. Or maybe at the fairgrounds in Sioux Falls or Huron, or on the campus of some other public institution.
I realize that the cost of restoring and displaying the aging collection in a nice building is prohibitive for most institutions in South Dakota, a relatively poor state that usually is content to accept whatever happens. We should dream big once in a while, though.
The Brockhouse Collection includes more than 150 mounts of taxidermy animals from the late 1940s through the 1970s. They came from animals around the world that were mostly gathered by Henry Brockhouse, a Sioux Falls businessman and accomplished hunter.
Sioux Falls attorney C.J. Delbridge bought the collection in 1981 and donated it to the city. Subsequently, the collection was displayed in the Delbridge Museum, next to the Great Plains Zoo, from 1984 until 2023, when it closed.
Before the museum, many of the mounts were displayed at Brockhouse’s business, the former West Sioux Hardware.
The Delbridge Museum was closed because officials were concerned that as the specimens were beginning to break down and that, as a result, exposure to potentially dangerous chemicals posed health risks to people. Something had to be done. A committee is deciding what steps should be taken.
According to recent news reports, the University of Notre Dame Museum of Biodiversity is interested in about two-thirds of the collection. A few other museums and organizations reportedly are interested in some of the pieces, too.
It’s probably too late to hope for a miracle that keeps the best of the collection in South Dakota. But this is the time of year that wishes sometimes come true.
Rob Swenson is a retired journalist from Sioux Falls. He worked for more than 40 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, and as a freelance writer and marketer.
Photo: courtesy Great Plains Zoo
