The Nevada State Museum will open a $5.4 million structure Thursday that will accommodate disabled people, connect the museum's two buildings and give the museum a single entrance.
The 4,000-square-foot glass structure is modeled after the frames miners once used to lower elevators into shafts.
The museum will be much easier for visitors to use, said MuseumDirector Jim Barmore. People sometimes got confused over which building to enter, he said, and access for wheelchair users was difficult.
"It was very awkward and not consistent with the museum's value of accessibility at all," Barmore said.
The structure also will give the museum more space for exhibits, including large artifacts like a sheepherder's wagon and stagecoach, he said.
The museum opened in the Carson City Mint in 1941. It bought the building next door,know as the North Building, in 1997.
The renovation will allow the museum to reopen an American Indian exhibit and gift shop in the North Building, and also added elevator access to the underground mining exhibit.
Work on the project started in October 2007.
Peter Barton, acting administrator of the Nevada Division of Museums and History, said the museum is important to the city's history and tourism.
Visitors consistently name Old West history as one of the top reasons for visiting Carson City, he said.
"This is going to become a beacon for downtown Carson," he said.
Robbie Oxoby, project architect, said he had to be careful designing the structure because he didn't want to interfere with the impressive classical design for the 19th-century mint.
"I wanted something that would be light and airy," he said. "I sort of wanted to create something that was in a sense not there, a transparent structure."
Oxoby said he also chose the structure's resemblance to mining equipment for a reason.
"It had to identify with the story of Nevada," he said.