ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, April 5, 1996                  TAG: 9604050131
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6    EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: BASTIAN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER 

BLAND COUNTY ALSO BUILDING LIVING MUSEUM

By the time Bland County's living museum opens to tourists this May, workers hope to have six wigwams up and ready, to demonstrate what life was like for members of the Wolf Creek Indian Village.

Three of the wigwams are finished and work is underway on the palisade wall around the village.

The living museum, part of the 24.5-acre Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum, is located just off Interstate 77.

Eventually, there will be 10 wigwams inside the village wall, said Foli Taylor, administrative assistant for the project. The dwellings and the wall will be recreated as they existed hundreds of years ago, using the same kind of local poplar wood the Indians used. Researchers were able to identify the wood and other materials based on carbon traces from post holes in the ground when the area was excavated.

The museum's guides recently completed five days of intensive training in how the original inhabitants lived and worked here centuries ago. They learned to skin deer, ignite friction fires, tan hides, and make spears, knives, bows, arrows, glue, paints and much more, all from materials found around the village site

The village segment got some of its funding through an Intermodal Service Transportation Efficiency Act grant of more than $256,000. A second grant for more than $333,000 is being sought for the next phase of the project, which would allow construction to start on an indoor museum.

Admission to the 3,200-square foot indoor museum, designed by Blacksburg architect Thomas Koontz, would be free. There will be an admission charge for the village section.

The third phase of the project will include a parking lot and archaeological building, and another grant will be sought to help with that.

"It's at the point now where I can see it really happening," said George Schaeffer, director of the project. "It's moving along."

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