4th Move the Charm for History Museum?

The struggling Orange County Natural History Museum is leaving its storefront location in San Juan Capistrano for a double-wide trailer in Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park, the fourth move since opening in 1990.

But museum officials said Friday that the latest move should be their last, and that the new site should place the facility on a more solid financial footing.

The new museum is nestled among sycamore trees near the Awma Road entrance to the park and opens today. The county Harbors, Beaches & Parks division is allowing the museum to use the parkland without paying rent in exchange for reserving space in the trailer for a park ranger.

“This is a better location for us,” said Jacki Hanson, director of the Orange County Natural History Assn., which raises money for the museum.

Park officials said the museum is a nice addition to the 3,400-acre park. “The museum is relevant to our park because some of the birds they have on display live here in the park,” said Tim Miller, the county’s parks manager.

Until now, the museum operated out of the Franciscan Plaza in San Juan Capistrano, where it paid a discounted rent. But the plaza’s owners found a new tenant willing to pay full rent, and the museum had to move.

It is the only Orange County institution devoted to teaching about the area’s rich natural and cultural history. Among its exhibits are Native American artifacts, shells, fossils and displays of indigenous animals past and present. The exhibits allow visitors to see and touch ancient history, including massive fossils of whale and dolphin skeletons that are millions of years old.

Some displays remain stored in boxes, including a 12-million-year-old fossil believed to have come from a walrus. It was found in the Lake Forest area and was nicknamed Waldo.

“We have taken Waldo apart and put it back together again four times [over the years]. It takes us eight hours each time,” said Lloyd Sample, field director for LSA Associates, an environmental, planning and consulting firm that works with the museum.

The quest to keep Orange County’s natural history alive for the public hasn’t been easy without government grants or funding. The Natural History Foundation of Orange County established the museum in December 1990 in Aliso Viejo, but the facility closed six months later, $200,000 in debt.

The museum reopened in February 1993 in a free space at the Plaza de la Paz shopping center in Laguna Niguel.

When the plaza’s ownership changed, the museum moved to San Juan Capistrano in 1996.

This weekend, volunteers plan to move to the trailer several snakes, including a 5-foot-long red diamond rattler named Pumpkin. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Although the museum opens today, a grand-opening celebration is planned for June 26.

Information: (714) 487-9155.