Margot and Ross Perot lend their name to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the natural history and science museum in front of you in Victory Park. Feel the history beneath your feet: this institution traces its roots back to June 6, 1936, when the Dallas Museum of Natural History opened as part of the Texas Centennial Exposition. Two decades later, on September 20, 1946, the Dallas Health Museum was founded by a group chartered as the Dallas Academy of Medicine; it became the Dallas Health and Science Museum in 1958 and took the name the Science Place in 1981.
In 1995 the Dallas Children’s Museum was founded elsewhere, and in 2006 CEO Nicole Small oversaw the uniting of those museums at Fair Park. At Fair Park the museum occupied three buildings, featuring an IMAX-style theater, a planetarium, an extensive exhibit hall, and its own paleontology lab. The institution moved on December 1, 2012, to this new facility in Victory Park.
The chief executive officer of the museum is Dr. Linda Abraham-Silver, and on June 1, 2014, Nicole Small was replaced by Colleen Walker. From Fair Park to Victory Park, this museum arrived at its new home on December 1, 2012.