Construction is finally underway on a new exhibit space and interactive children’s room at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta.
Workers from David Smith Construction in Inverness were busy Wednesday framing in walls in a room that once held the accounting department of the Billups Petroleum Co., according to Cheryl Taylor Thornhill, museum executive director.
The museum’s extensive archaeology collection will be displayed in the new exhibit space, and Thornhill said the displays will upgrade the museum’s interpretation of objects credited to pre-Columbian, pre-tribal Mississippi first nations people.
Kory Liddell of David Smith Construction nails in a stud during construction at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta.
The collection of Native American artifacts includes tools, weaponry and pottery found in 1974 at the Humber-McWilliams site near Clarksdale. One piece of pottery dates to the second century, and the collection includes a fossilized coral that is estimated to be 330 million years old, a period when the land that is now Mississippi was the bed of an ocean.
When the items are brought to their new home, they’ll be displayed in newly constructed exhibits.
“The Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area supplied funding for new exhibits to be installed in the archaeology section,” Thornhill said.
The Children’s Discovery Room will be a glassed-in section with hands-on exhibits designed for toddlers and up, she said. The new space will be located adjacent to the museum’s Swamp Room and Fur & Feathers Room, geared both for children and adults.
The project is funded mainly by an $82,600 grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission, as well as funding from the city of Greenwood, Leflore County, Staplcotn and a number of private donors.
The goal is to partially reopen the archaeology room and the Children’s Discovery Room this spring with full reopening planned for later this year.
•Contact Gavin Maliska at 581-7235 or gmaliska@gwcommonwealth.com.
