Salina ? Officials with the Smoky Hill Museum are taking to heart a suggestion five years ago that it needed to do a better job with interpretive programs.

An $870,000 museum gallery renovation is designed to achieve that goal, first forwarded by a team from the American Association of Museums’ accrediting process. The expansion will create new, hands-on exhibits, including a working flour mill, an expanded dugout and an area where visitors can pack a trunk with supplies to travel west by covered wagon.

Nearly half the money needed for the renovation has been raised, director Dee Harris said last week. The group Friends of the Museum hopes to raise the rest in the next few years.

Renovation of the 5,700-foot main gallery is expected to begin in the spring of 2003 and be completed by that November, with the gallery closing only for three weeks for the final installation.

Harris said museum staff and the Friends group have been working since the accreditation was granted, conducting community surveys and focus groups to determine what changes should be made.

“Survey results indicated that community members wanted stronger facilities to teach children local history, more artifacts on display and additional information on the history of the Smoky Hills region,” Harris said.

The museum board worked with a Bartlesville, Okla., design firm that specializes in design for small museums.

The design team spent several months talking to Saline County residents and researching the area before coming up with the final design.

The renovated gallery will be divided into seven exhibit areas and will include a Special Exhibits Gallery and an information center.

Among the exhibit areas will be the 1900s Mercantile Store, where people will learn how to purchase sugar or barter butter for new shoes, and the mill, where visitors will be able to grind wheat into flour. The dugout will be expanded, and children will be able to sit inside while they imagine what life was like when white settlers first came to the Smoky Hills.