July 15, 2021
The East Benton County Historical Society Museum was built around a floor! Local resident Gordon Maxey spent 16 years collecting, slicing, and polishing petrified wood to make a floor for his home. After his death, his heirs agreed to donate the floor to the historical society if a building were constructed to house it.
First nations people and fur traders lived in the area before the railroad arrived in 1883. The town grew up around it.
The museum includes an exhibit on a skeleton found in 1996 and called Kennewick Man. It is one of the oldest and most complete skeletons found in North America. Radio carbon tests show the bones to date from about 9,000 years before present. A stone spearpoint found in the hip of the skeleton supports this result.
The museum is home to a variety of other exhibits.
2 Comments
Susan · August 9, 2021 at 11:38 am
OK I know Dave is great with wood so I request in a new house that we hope we will eventually find I can have him make me that floor. It is beautiful!!!!
Jane Appel · August 9, 2021 at 12:16 pm
He’ll get right on it. That’ll give you plenty of time to find a house–if I remember right it took 16 years to make the floor in the museum.