Storehouse will hold artifacts from Missouri

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- American Indian skeletal remains and other artifacts that are uncovered by construction projects will soon be housed by the state in one building near Rock Bridge Memorial State Park.

Starting in June, about 2,500 boxes of artifacts that have been discovered in Missouri over the years will be housed in a new 4,500-square-foot, climate-controlled building operated by the Missouri Department of Transportation and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, DNR spokeswoman Sue Holst said.

"It's an irreplaceable part of our nation's history and prehistory," said Bob Reeder, the historical preservation manager for MoDOT. "Archeological sites that are impacted or destroyed through construction cannot be replaced."

Currently, when an archeological site is discovered during a construction project, the controlling department controls the artifacts.

The building will not be open to the public, Reeder said, adding that anyone who did visit would see a lot more "uninteresting flakes" than spectacular artifacts.

The thousands of individual items were discovered as long ago as the mid-1960s, when MoDOT began saving artifacts discovered while building Interstate 55 in the Bootheel.

DNR will pay about $3,600 a year to operate the new building. MoDOT General Service Manager Chris DeVore said his department would pay for the $362,800 structure, which also will have an office for MoDOT and DNR and an area to catalog new additions to the repository.

About four miles north of the building is the Museum of Anthropology Museum Support Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The 20,000-square-foot center houses billions of archeological finds, said Mary French, associate museum curator.

"That's every arrowhead and piece of pottery," she said. "We get things from individual donors, and if they're from Missouri we usually take them."