The Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University is pleased to announce the new Dean and Jean Larsen Yellowstone Park Collection.

In 2000, the Larsens gave their collection of more than 2,000 Yellowstone items to the Harold B. Lee Library's L. Tom Perry Special Collections. The collection was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 13, and a display of selected artifacts will run through Sept. 14.

The collection is available Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the library's first level.

A. Dean Larsen and his wife Jean have shared a life-long passion for Yellowstone National Park. Since visiting the park for the first time in 1940, Dean was captivated by the beauty, history and geology of the park. An outgrowth of his interest was collecting books, maps, photographs, and other materials related to Yellowstone.

The oldest item in the collection is a one-of-a-kind map created around 1843 by fur trapper Warren Angus Ferris. Photographs in the collection date back to 1872 when Yellowstone became the country's first national park.

A unique photo in the collection is of President Theodore Roosevelt, who visited Yellowstone and traveled through the park on a horse.

The collection has been called one of the finest private collections of Yellowstone material and contains many scarce and rare items. The Larsen Yellowstone Collection is a natural complement to the collections of Western Americana already maintained by the L. Tom Perry Special Collections.

Dean Larsen passed away on May 29, 2002, after a long battle with cancer.

For more information on the Dean and Jean Larsen Yellowstone Collection, contact Russ Taylor, (801) 422-2932, or Larry Draper, (801) 422-6372.