Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 10, 1994 TAG: 9404110127
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV14 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The portable model will include a representation of the area of Saltville around the planned museum site. Jerry McDonald, vice president of the Saltville Foundation Board of Trustees, estimates the work should take about three months.
The model can be moved and displayed in different areas, and will be used to generate interest in and contributions for the project.
U.S. Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., obtained assistance from Tennessee Valley Authority architects to design promotional materials and drawings of how the museum may look. The model is the next step.
Tech's Department of Architecture also has chosen the museum project as the subject of its special course for advanced students, now under way. Each student will provide his or her ideas for how the museum could be designed, McDonald said, ``so we're going to get 10 or 12 different interpretations. ... It's flattering to have that amount of attention paid to what we're trying to do.''
McDonald was instrumental in early research on the Saltville area starting more than a decade ago, when he was a professor at Radford University and took geology students to the area on the Smyth-Washington County border to excavate areas where traces of early history were preserved.
These and other digs have turned up the remains of villages created by prehistoric Indians as well as fossils and bones of prehistoric animals.
McDonald is now a partner in the McDonald & Woodward Publishing Co. in Blacksburg, but his interest in Saltville has continued and he has returned for other summer researches. It was natural for him to be involved when a group of citizens began talking in 1990 about building a museum at Saltville that would take advantage of the rich natural and cultural heritage of the Middle Appalachian Region.
By late 1991, the Saltville Foundation had been chartered and, in less than two years, launched a fund-raising drive for enough money to hire a director to push ahead full time on the proposed $10 million to $15 million museum and complex.
McDonald, who is chairman of the search committee, said more than 30 people have applied for the job and it has not been advertised yet.
He said he would like to have 100 applications on hand before screening begins, probably late this month. ``I don't know why. Maybe the first one is the one you want.''
Plans will be developed and funds raised for the museum and complex from this summer through the end of 1995. The next two years are scheduled for construction, with the museum open between 1997 and 1998.
The foundation is offering memberships in various categories, including student, individual, family, sponsor and benefactor, ranging from a minimum of $10 to $5,000. Further information is available from the foundation at P.O. Box 910, Saltville, Va. 24370.
The organization also has published the first of its planned quarterly newsletters, called The Mammoth, to keep members up to date on developments and to serve as a resource for area educators with articles on history and discoveries in the area.
The first mention of fossils in the Saltville area found so far is in a 1782 letter to Thomas Jefferson, concerning a ``tooth'' and ``bones of uncommon size'' found in the area and given to Jefferson.
Some remains of Ice Age mammals such as a mastodon, woolly mammoth, giant ground sloth, musk ox and other prehistoric creatures have been uncovered in more recent times.
by CNB