The museum is operated by the Chicago Academy of Sciences , which had previously been located at Lincoln Park 's century old Matthew Laflin Memorial Building . The Academy was founded in 1857 by young prominent American naturalists , such as Robert Kennicott and William Stimpson . It was Chicago ’s first museum dedicated to nature and science , and developed one of the finest natural history collections in the United States in the mid-19th century , but that collection was lost in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 . The museum was rebuilt but lost its home again in the financial turmoil of the 1880s . The museum then built a building in Lincoln Park in 1898 , which became the model for the Chicago Park District 's museum-in-the-parks program . The old museum attracted many visitors with its naturalistic dioramas of area ecological settings . In the 1990s , a new home for the museum was constructed nearby , on the southeastern banks of the North Pond . Its old building is currently used for Lincoln Park Zoo administration
Great Chicago Fire
Great Chicago Fire
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum