Published: Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008 / Updated: Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008 12:34 AM

The State Museum's collection is 20 years in the making

During its nearly two decades, the State Museum has collected more than 70,000 items, from fossils to pottery.

"There are probably close to 150,000 individual items, because we often classify some in groups," said the museum's Michelle Baker. "Our collection is really pretty large considering the time we've been collecting."

The museum, which opened on Oct. 29, 1988, will celebrate its success at a 20th Anniversary Birthday Bash this Saturday and Sunday with 20 hours of live entertainment, storytelling, hay rides and more.

About 95 percent of the museum's collection is in storage. Those items only go on display only once in a while or never at all.

However, after some digging in the back rooms and around the 20th anniversary exhibit, the museum staff found seven unique pieces that represent the diversity of its collection.

Leda Hurst's dentist chair

The 1930s dentist chair arrived at the museum taped together and covered in rust.

It belonged to Leda Hurst, the first licensed woman dentist in South Carolina. After receiving her degree in 1919, Hurst served whites and African-Americans in Anderson until 1967.

Once its cleaning is completed, it should be on display in a new exhibition on women in South Carolina, slated for March 2009.

Nickel Slot Machine

This 1930s nickel slot machine made by Chicago's Mills Novelty Co., and others like it, were declared "the most damnable thing in the state" in 1931 by legislator W.C. Johnston. Their use eventually was outlawed.

The museum ran into a snag when it attempted to acquire the slot machine in the late 1980s.

Laws dictating that such machines be destroyed were still on the books. To preserve it, the State Museum had to take legal steps to ensure the machine would be used as an artifact and not for gambling.

Charleston sketch

In 1953, Sears and Roebuck Co. commissioned William Halsey, a Charleston artist, to create a series of murals, called "The Charleston Story," which were to be displayed in the company's building in downtown Charleston.

The State Museum received four large color studies and eight pencil sketches from the artist in 1982.

The mural itself and the others in the series, Halsey's largest at 96-feet long, were destroyed in a fire in 1981.

C. King Boat by Willie DeReef

This blue and white flat-bottom boat has the distinction of being an original creation by the only known boat builder left in Georgetown County.

The museum purchased the boat in 2004. It is a large piece, but one of special significance because of due to its Gullah culture connection.

"The reason we keep certain things is to preserve them," Baker explained. "If we don't collect it, it might be gone in 20 years."

Jenny Prince Dress

In the "20 Years of Treasures" exhibit created for the museum's anniversary, there is a brightly colored polka-dot dress. This Spanish-style frock with ruffles and fringe is one of the earliest creations by S.C. fashion designer Jenny Prince.

From the 1950s to 1970s, Prince made frilly ball gowns for nearly every pageant queen in the state.

Although the museum already has many of Prince's ball gowns in its collection, this piece is unique because it dates to the 1920s and is such a departure from the style that later made her popular.

Ground Sloth fossils

"South Carolina has a rich fossil history," said Jim Knight, director of collections and curator of natural history. Director of Collections and Curator of Natural History Jim Knight said.

Among the museum's more interesting fossils are the remains of at least five ground sloths. These sloths are nothing close in size to slow-moving modern-day tree sloths: They could reach 17 feet in height tall.

The fossils came from the Camelot site at the Giant Cement Plant, just north of Harleyville -- an area that also yielded the fossils of two types of camels, turtles, and saber-toothed cats and two types of camels.

The sloth collection holds more than 300 individual elements, from femurs to jaws. A few ground sloth fossils are on display in the museum's Pleistocene exhibit.

Carolina parakeet

Locked inside a climate controlled climate-controlled cooler on the third floor is a rather tattered Carolina parakeet. The specimen's once bright green, yellow and red plumage disintegrated slowly as light and air swept it away.

This Carolina parakeet was brought to the museum in 1976 by naturalist and "NatureScene" host Rudy Mancke when he was the museum's curator of natural history.

He found the specimen in while digging through a bag of bird skins he had received. It went on display for awhile during the early days of the museum, but exposure to the lights was causing it to rapidly decompose.

Over-hunting and destruction of habitat were the main causes of the species' extinction.