St. Louis Museum

The museum was located on the third floor of Wyman's Hall on Market Street in St. Louis, Missouri, opposite the Court House.

[1] Bates was also devoted to natural history, making frequent trips to Europe, South America, and the tropics to collect birds, quadrupeds, and other specimens.

[1] Museum collections included curiosities from the East Indies and South Sea Islands, paintings and statuary, and minerals and shells.

[4] Despite his showmanship, Koch played a significant role in scientific endeavors of the 19th century and his museum contained many important natural history collections.

Later, anatomists found that this newly discovered specimen was merely a misassembled mastodon skeleton with a number of extra bones.

[4] A broadside promoting the exhibit took Silliman's letter out of context and presented the hydrarchus as "Leviathan of the Antediluvian World".

Koch toured the United States with his collections and later traveled to Europe where he exhibited the Missourium in London and Dublin.

He later accepted an offer from the British Museum to purchase parts of his fossil collection, including the Missourium, for 1300 pounds.