During his years of collecting and study, Heye funded numerous archeological expeditions and supported scholarly work of the time.

[2] While superintending railroad construction in Kingman, Arizona in 1897, Heye acquired a Navajo deerskin shirt, his first Native American item.

His success gave him the financial means to fund archeological expeditions conducted by scholars in the field.

For instance, he funded an expedition in 1907 to Ecuador and Colombia by Professor Saville of the Department of Anthropology of Columbia University, Heye's alma mater.

In 1915, Heye worked with Frederick W. Hodge and George H. Pepper on the Nacoochee Mound in White County, Georgia.

[4] Through the years, Heye accumulated the largest private collection of Native American objects in the world.

The collection was initially stored in Heye's Madison Avenue apartment in New York City, and later in a rented room.

"[3] He began to lend materials for exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania, at what later became its Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.

In 1994 the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian opened in the former Alexander Hamilton U.S.

This federal legislation recognized that grave goods and other sacred items had been taken from Native American tribes without permission through archeological and other collecting expeditions.