Museum tours offer rare peek into the basement of "Nevada's Attic"

Visitors will have the rare opportunity to look behind the scenes at the Nevada State Museum in celebration of Nevada Archaeology Awareness and Historic Preservation Week.

Regular museum entry fees will include guided tours of the archeological research collections in the basement all of next week.

"People will see things that others don't get to see. It's pretty exciting," said Museum Director Jim Barmore.

The tours will include the recently remodeled historic Native American basketry area and the Lovelock "Chinatown" Asian comparative collection. Both of these collections were organized over the past year by museum volunteers and financed by private donations and grants.

"These collections are used for study and research by anthropologists, basket weavers, and historic archaeologists," Curator of Anthropology Dr. Eugene Hattori said.

Some of the baskets to be shown during the tour were woven in the 1770's by people living on early Spanish missions, he said. They come from the collection of late nineteenth-century physician Dr. S.L. Lee.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to see more of the prehistoric feathered caps like those displayed in the Under One Sky exhibit at the museum.

"We radio carbon-dated them and they range from 12 to 1,500 years in age," Hattori said.

Another rare treat for visitors of the museum next week will be some of the artifacts dug up from Lovelock's Chinatown in the 1970s. During the construction of the last segment of Interstate 80 archeologists from the museum searched the site which was occupied from 1880s the 1930s.

They found trunks full of material such as a restaurant menu and a Chinese lottery book -- a forerunner to modern day Keno.

They also discovered 119 American gold coins buried in a pot under buildings on the site.

"They're mostly $20 gold pieces but there's also some $10 and some $5 coins -- all dated before 1910," Hattori said.

Tour dates and times will be scheduled throughout the week. Because space will be limited visitors can reserve a spot on a tour by calling Roz Works at 687-4810, ext. 228. The Nevada State Museum is one of seven managed by the state Division of Museums and History, an agency of the Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs.

If You Go

What: Behind-the-scenes tours of the Nevada State Museum

When: Sunday through May 17 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily

Where: Nevada State Museum

Cost: Regular museum admission fees will be charged

Call: To reserve a spot on a tour, call Roz Works at 687-4810, ext. 228