Oklahoma history takes a leap into the 21st Century

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A new museum will use 2,000 artifacts and 200 displays to tell the story of Oklahoma from the Plains Indians to the record-setting flights of Wiley Post.<br/><br/>But officials with

Monday, October 3rd 2005, 6:21 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A new museum will use 2,000 artifacts and 200 displays to tell the story of Oklahoma from the Plains Indians to the record-setting flights of Wiley Post.

But officials with The History Center -- slated to open just east of the state Capitol in mid-November -- say they'll present the past in a different way.

Museum director Dan Provo says exhibits using video, audio and interactive computers are set up along meandering pathways, encouraging visitors to wander until their eye catches something of interest.

For instance, visitors can see a race car from the collection of the late Oklahoman industrialist John Zink Junior, whose cars won the Indianapolis 500 twice.

There's also a reproduction of the lunch counter at the Katz Drug Store, where civil rights activist Clara Luper and some of her students staged a sit-in against segregated restaurants in 1958.

The old museum in the Wiley Post Building on the south side of the Capitol was built in 1929 and has six-thousand square feet of gallery space.

The new museum will have 40,000 square feet of gallery space, include rooms for student education programs and a cafe.