Dwight B. and Maie Bartlett Heard founded the Heard Museum in 1929 to house their personal collection, and it faces you here in Phoenix. Here the stories of American Indian people are presented from a first-person perspective, alongside exhibitions of traditional and contemporary work by American Indian artists and by artists influenced by American Indian art. The main Phoenix location you face has been designated a Phoenix Point of Pride.
The museum began in 1929 when Dwight B. and Maie Bartlett Heard founded it to house their personal collection; much of the archaeological material came from the La Ciudad Indian ruin the Heards purchased in 1926 at 19th and Polk streets in Phoenix. Portions of this museum were designed by architect Bennie Gonzales, who also designed Scottsdale City Hall. Inside the institution you see lies a collection of over 40,000 items and a library and archives with over 34,000 volumes.
You might recall the museum once operated branches in Surprise and in North Scottsdale, which closed in 2009 and in May 2014 respectively. Notice the building and grounds around this Phoenix Point of Pride, its Gonzales-designed portions holding thousands of objects and volumes within.