Loomis Museum

Loomis Visitor Center
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district Contributing property
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Location	Lassen Volcanic National Park, Shingletown, California
Coordinates	40°32′10.21″N 121°33′47.08″W / 40.5361694°N 121.5630778°W / 40.5361694; -121.5630778
Area	1 acre (0.40 ha)
Built	1927
NRHP reference No.	75000177[1]
Added to NRHP	February 25, 1975

The Loomis Museum, also known as the Loomis Visitor Center, the Manzanita Lake Visitor Center and the Manzanita Lake Museum, was built by Benjamin Franklin Loomis in 1927 near Manzanita Lake, just outside Lassen Volcanic National Park in California, USA. Loomis was a local homesteader and photographer who documented the 1915 eruptions of Lassen Peak, and was instrumental in the 1916 establishment of the national park. In 1929 Loomis donated the museum and 40 acres (16 ha) of surrounding lands to the National Park Service, which since then has used the structure as an interpretational facility.^[2]

Loomis had desired that the headquarters of the new park be established at Manzanita Lake, but an alternate site was chosen by the Park Service. Loomis and his wife Estella started building their own museum to exhibit photographs taken by Loomis and others, as well as geological exhibits and artifacts of local Native Americans. The building was dedicated on July 4, 1927 as the Mae Loomis Memorial Museum, named after their only child, Luisa Mae Loomis, who had died in 1920.^[2][3]