New museum project reflects state's history

The Nevada State Museum unveiled a new $5.4 million project Thursday night that state officials said would help bring Nevadans together.

Gov. Jim Gibbons and Department of Cultural Affairs Director Michael Fischer cut a blue ribbon to let people into the grand opening of a glass structure connecting the museum's two buildings.

The 4,000-square-foot glass structure will also accommodate disabled people and give the museum a single entrance. It's modeled after frames miners once used to lower elevators into shafts.

A sheepherder's wagon was displayed in the structure Thursday night. The museum plans to display other large artifacts there, including a stagecoach.

"This construction project has brought together Nevada history like no other example of bringing together the history of this great state can," Gibbons told the crowd.

The governor said he remembers visiting one of his favorite exhibits, the underground mining exhibit, as a child. He said he's glad to see that disabled people will be able to visit the entire museum through the new structure and its elevator to the mining exhibit.

"This museum is about people," Gibbons said. "It's about how we overcame obstacles like we're in today, like the economy we're struggling with today. It's to bridge those differences we may have and create opportunity and history that shows we will not only survive, but we will prosper."

The new structure is a "sincere, equitable, easy" way to bring people together at the museum, Fischer said.

It opens the museum to visitors who may be new residents or people who have family histories stretching back to before the state entered the union, he said.

"This is an opportunity for us to understand the history of this state and the people that make up our state," he said.

Museum Director Jim Barmore said the completion of the new structure after 18 months of construction is a "proud day" for the city and the state.

The new structure will help people see all the upgrades the museum has done over the past 10 years, he said.

"All these improvements have elevated this museum into being one of the finest mid-sized museums probably anywhere in our country, right here in Nevada, in Carson City," he said.