Edwin Carter came to Colorado around 1860 chasing gold, but what he found alarmed him: mining and logging were devastating Rocky Mountain wildlife. So he reinvented himself as a naturalist and taxidermist, and from the log cabin he built on Ridge Street in 1875 he assembled more than 3,000 specimens — a deliberate record of Colorado fauna for generations he would never meet. After his death in 1900, that collection became the founding catalyst of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

The Discovery Center occupies Carter's original cabin home and workshop, mixing hands-on exhibits with surviving taxidermy from his collection. A history interpreter is on site to fill in the story, and in 2025 the museum marked 150 years since the cabin went up.

Admission is by suggested donation, and the cabin sits an easy walk from Main Street — a quiet counterpoint to the gold-rush bustle it once witnessed.