In 1916, he purchased the collection of Alaskan Native artifacts that had won the gold medal for ethnological collections at the 1909 Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, from J. E. Standley of Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. Eventually, the Heye collection was moved to the Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian at 155th Street and Broadway, which broke ground in May 1916. He had been encouraged to build there by Archer Milton Huntington, who had already established The Hispanic Society of America in its own building and sponsored a complex of cultural institutions.