Evelyn Grace Conklin: A Trailblazer in Nature Conservation and Community Enrichment (March 29, 1927 - July 2, 2024)
The Trailblazer
Evelyn Grace Conklin, 97 years young, passed peacefully on July 2, 2024, to join her family and friends waiting to welcome her to the Lord’s Kingdom. Evelyn, a life-long nature lover, was well known and admired by many in Yucca Valley as founder and first curator and naturalist of the Hi-Desert Nature Museum. From 1964 until she retired in 1992, Evelyn managed the popular museum, with its many live animals and reptiles, where parents knew their children were in a safe and learning environment.
Although she was intent on it becoming a nature museum, Evelyn recognized the opportunity to serve other community needs and to cultivate groups and individuals who would aid and support the museum. She opened the museum for local and visiting artists to display their works. Each month a different artist was selected as artist of the month and the museum would hold a reception to introduce each one. Between 1967 and 1973, the museum showed over 2,000 pieces of art by 135 different artists. As a result of this exposure, the art community became one of the museum’s strongest boosters. Not only did artists sometimes donate one or more of their artworks, but they also contributed their time, money, and influence to keeping the museum operating.
Under Evelyn’s guidance, the museum developed a wide variety of specialized displays and exhibits. She encouraged the participation of local groups such as the Morongo Basin Gem and Mineral Society and the China Painters’ Club to create displays for the museum. Other special interest groups as well as individual hobbyists offered their collections of metal works, dolls, or wood carvings for museum exhibits.
Evelyn became such a respected naturalist and museum curator that every year Caltech came to the Hi-Desert Nature Museum with visiting professors from all over the world. Conklin also advised and was responsible for starting the Santa Barbara nature museum and four other natural history museums in California. While running the museum, she honed her administrative skills. She even brought her own typewriter from home to save money on a tight budget.
The Hi-Desert Nature Museum opened its doors in a small building in Hi-Desert Park (now Jacobs Park) on Onaga Trail in October 1964, although the actual Grand Opening was held on January 21, 1965. Evelyn served as curator-naturalist for 28 years, retiring in 1992. The museum was popular from the beginning. Almost 1,000 visitors showed up in the first month at the Onaga Trail location. The museum rapidly became a local tourist attraction. By 1989, when it added the diorama wing, there were more than 30,000 visitors annually from all fifty states and dozens of foreign countries.
By 1972, the museum had begun to outgrow its 800-square-foot space and Evelyn was forced to hang some exhibits from the ceiling. Subsequently, in 1973, the museum was relocated to a 3,200-square-foot space in the brand-new Yucca Valley Community Center. Then, with the help of loyal volunteers, they moved everything to the new museum using their own vehicles and at their own expense. It was in the new museum building that Evelyn was able to realize her vision of having a nature museum with live exhibits of snakes, lizards, and small mammals.
In addition to professional recognition, Evelyn was awarded a plaque of appreciation by the Yucca Valley Chamber of Commerce in 1966-67; was made the first Honorary Life Member of the Yucca Valley Art Association in 1974; and was named Woman of the Year by Soroptimist International of Yucca Valley, in 1976. In 1990, Evelyn was honored as Grand Marshal of the Grubstake Days Parade.
Perhaps the greatest honor that Evelyn and the museum received came during a budget crisis when the city was considering cuts in hours and staff. During a town meeting to discuss the options, the kids stood up and pleaded for the museum and dug into their pockets and emptied their piggy banks of pennies, nickels, and dimes to keep the museum going.
Evelyn and her father, Percy ‘Slim’ Conklin, moved to the Morongo Basin from San Dimas not long after Slim retired from the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department. Evelyn had been raised by her father since her mother Edith died in 1945. In 1948, with her father’s recommendation, Evelyn, age 21, was hired to start the first nature museum in California.
They became avid travelers, especially after acquiring a Dalton travel trailer, all over the western states from the Pacific coast to the Rocky Mountains and from the Canadian border to the Mexican border. One of their favorite places to camp was at the Jumbo Rocks campground in what was then Joshua Tree National Monument and they decided to search for property in the area. They started looking in Twentynine Palms and worked their way west. Nothing appealed to them. They were looking for suitable property that would provide what they wanted: boulders, Joshua Trees, junipers, wildlife and mountain views – nothing to do with square footage. Finally, they were shown a two-and-a-half-acre property with a cabin in Pipe’s Canyon. They immediately knew this was where they wanted to live.
Evelyn Grace Conklin never lost her love of nature. Even in her nineties, she would put out water and seed for the many birds around the house. She had a special connection with all creatures. She was so smart, yet very humble and was a very precious and lovely soul, and we will miss her dearly.
On display @ the museum:
“Conklin’s Camper”
1956 Dalton Travel Trailer
This Dalton travel trailer was donated to the Morongo Basin Historical Society by member Evelyn Conklin, a founder and the first naturalist and curator of the Hi-Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley. Evelyn and her father, Percy “Slim” Conklin, made many contributions to the culture and life of Yucca Valley and the Morongo Basin—indeed, to all of Southern California. We are grateful to have their vintage trailer, which traveled throughout the western United States, as an exhibit in their honor.
In 1956, while living in San Dimas and working for Los Angeles Parks and Recreation, Evelyn and her father decided to look for a travel trailer to use for their vacations. Such trailers were becoming increasingly popular, and they thought it would be an ideal solution—getting away while always having a place to eat and sleep, a true “home away from home.”
They had $1,000 that Evelyn had saved and visited a Dalton dealership in Pomona, not far from El Monte, where the trailers were built from 1955 to 1961. The salesman asked how much they wanted to spend, and when they told him $1,000, he mentioned a demo trailer he was willing to sell for that amount. They took one look and were delighted to see it was yellow—Slim’s favorite color. Without hesitation, they agreed to buy it and promised to return with the money.
The Conklins stocked the trailer with cooking utensils, supplies, and food before hitting the road each year from June to October, traveling all over the West. They had many adventures, yet in all those years, they only had one flat tire. Once, out of money and nearly out of gas, they had to drive up a mountain road to a post office to pick up Slim’s monthly payroll check. With their gas tank almost empty, they coasted down the mountain to the nearest gas station to fill up.
Evelyn was always searching for specimens for the Hi-Desert Nature Museum. On one occasion, at a National Park, she convinced a ranger to give her a king snake to bring back to the museum. However, soon after placing the snake in its cage inside the trailer, it escaped and disappeared. They searched everywhere but couldn’t find it, making for an uneasy night’s sleep as they worried about waking up with a king snake in bed. Much to their relief, the snake finally reappeared, and they successfully delivered it to its new home at the museum.
