Our legal name is Mount St. Helens Creation Information Center.  Here we feature the seven wonders of Mount St. Helens, give our PowerPoint talk and house the bookstore, all in a 1460 square foot building on the south side of SR 504 at Milepost 9.5 (ie-9 ½ miles east of I-5).  Volunteers helped build an addition to the original 500 sf structure between 2002 and 2004.  For 2008 plans include paving a two-way entrance drive and an 11-stall parking lot plus bus/RV stall.  Major landscaping improvements will follow.

Museum Display Room.  One enters the Museum to discover the display/book room.  The seven wonders are explained in wall displays and notebooks.  Many of the 235 creation books/DVDs for sale are displayed in this room.  The room also features a model of the Ark, using the H.O. model railroad scale.  One can sit down in comfortable chairs to look through a book or read the jackets of various DVD’s.  Visitors are invited to sign the guest register on a table near the entrance.  Some of over 40 free pieces of literature are located on this table along with a donation box.

Off the display room is the sales area and office.  Checks and cash are welcome, but we do not handle credit cards.  A hallway leads from the display room to the multi-purpose room (seats 70).  Men’s and women’s restrooms face the hallway.  Along the wall are numerous free booklets.

Multi-Purpose Room.  A large screen is mounted on the front wall to show the PowerPoint slides.   Youth creation titles are found along the back wall of the room together with several displays of fossil replicas and rocks.  An Ica Stone replica displays a dinosaur.  Pumice sits beside a tub of water for those who have never seen a rock float.

Two large windows allow the visitor to gaze south over a wetland.  Some groups have witnessed deer or elk in the large field beyond.  The resident caretakers saw nearly 60 elk enjoying the grass in this field on one occasion.  This herd comes through every couple of weeks.  Between the windows a glass double door opens onto a large, covered patio.  On a clear day one can see the top of MSH through the trees 27 miles away.  Visitors are welcome to eat their picnic lunch on the patio and a picnic table is envisioned in the landscaping plans.

A small kitchen serves the auditorium guests with refreshments and, on occasion, meals.

The Museum is on the highway to Johnston Ridge Observatory and MSH.  Admission is free.  So is the PowerPoint presentation.  But inasmuch as the resident caretakers are occasionally away, it is best to call ahead.  Most of the time they can arrange their schedule to fit yours.  While the PowerPoint talk can be given whenever the presenter is available, it is best to arrange this ahead of time.

History.  The Museum opened 8/15/98 and has had about 17,000 visitors through 2007.  The PowerPoint talk has been given about 800 times and about 250 field trips/tours have been conducted.  The Museum arranged for a MSH 25th Anniversary Conference held in the county conference center in Longview with about 900 registered attendees.  Dr. Stephen Austin, head of ICR’s department of geology, was the featured speaker.