Dr. E.H. Barbour arrived in the fall of 1891, bringing with him not only a doctorate degree from Yale, but also an extensive collection of minerals, sediment samples, and vertebrate fossils from his summer field trip to northwestern Nebraska. He financed this expedition from his own finances the summer before he was officially hired on as a faculty member at UNL, and brought his findings with him.

Barbour was hired as a professor of geology, as well as to act as the Nebraska state geologist. In addition to these duties, the complimentory honor of director of the Nebraska State Museum was bequeathed to him as well. Barbour took on these responsibilities and began enthusiastically adding to the museum, even funding his own expeditions for fossils in 1891 and 1892. In 1893, John Morrill, the head of the Nebraska Board of Regents at the time, heard about Barbour's lack of funding and offered to fund several expeditions a year out of his own expenses until 1902. Due to this generous offer, the collection grew exponentially, and began featuring larger vertebrate fossils for the first time.

As the collection grew, the top two floors in Nebraska Hall quickly became crowded with artifacts. Within a few years, Barbour was already working to try to secure funding for the construction of a separate museum building, with enough room for the current collection as well as future additions.