It was originally opened as the "Salt Lake City Museum and Menagerie" by John Willard Young, with Guglielmo Giosue Rosetti Sangiovanni as curator, in 1869.
[1] Ownership was transferred to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1878 and Joseph L. Barfoot became curator until his death in 1882.
[2] In 1885, the Salt Lake Literary and Scientific Association acquired the property and renamed it the "Deseret Museum".
In 1919, the museum was taken over by the Temple Square Bureau of Information and ceased its existence as a separate institution.
The collections not displayed at Temple Square were dispersed among institutions around the world, including the LDS University museum and the Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum.