CHARLESTON - A one-room, log cabin schoolhouse from Logan County is now being rebuilt inside the state museum at the Cultural Center in Charleston.

The log cabin schoolhouse was donated by 86-year-old Opal McCoy Lewis, who said she wanted to preserve the one-room school where she and her mother, aunts and uncles attended classes.

State Museum Director Adam Hodges told The Logan Banner in an earlier interview that the cabin would be treated for insects and made fire resistant before being reconstructed inside the museum in the basement of the Cultural Center.

The log cabin school building was transported earlier this year from its home at Monaville and taken apart, log by log, and treated.

Jacqueline Proctor, deputy commissioner of the State Division of Culture and History, said the Monaville schoolhouse will be an important piece in the state museum's collection.

"When this design was first being discussed, the idea of doing something that looked like a cabin was the most obvious way to go. But, Commissioner Randall Reed Smith was very strongly opinionated about having a real, authentic cabin," Proctor said. "We did a search and it took us awhile, but, he found what he wanted and here it is. This is going to be a gorgeous piece for the museum and it will be there forever."

Proctor said the entire history of West Virginia will be covered in the museum.

"There is so much in the museum that it's going to be an experience for people. You'll start in the pre-history area and you'll walk through coal forest and there will be replicas of dirt and coal as you walk along," Proctor said. "We're making this a full experience for everyone who comes here. It will capture the history of West Virginia from its very, very early prehistory era through to the present. We really believe that everyone will enjoy it and, as the commissioner says, 'The people of West Virginia deserve it.'"

Proctor said the commissioner hopes to have the state museum open by spring of 2009.

The museum's collection already includes the telescope George Washington used to survey parts of what is now West Virginia, the rope used to hang abolitionist John Brown and a Daniel Boone rifle.

It will also showcase items found in the pocket of a miner killed in the 1907 Monongah disaster, a souvenir glass pitcher from the 1906 state fair in Wheeling and a 50-foot portion of a coal mine, complete with a coal car.

Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, who spearheaded the campaign to get funding for the renovation of the museum and the reconstruction of the log cabin inside the museum, said he is happy that a schoolhouse from his county will be restored so "people from all over West Virginia and the country to see what life in early southern West Virginia was like."

"I am tickled to death that we're using this cabin as a centerpiece in the new museum," Tomblin said. "The total project is somewhere around a $20 million investment. This comes from Logan County so we've made a significant contribution to the artifacts and the history of our state to show what really rugged individualism that our predecessors had. It's a monument to the past and gives us a lot of encouragement toward the future."

Larry Bow, who is working on the reconstruction of the cabin, said the building dates back to 1835.

"The stone is the original fireplace. We've numbered it and put it back exactly like it was, exactly the way the pioneers would have had it," Bow said. "It's not that hard to reconstruct it, if you have the materials to match. Finding a 150-year-old cabin is our biggest dilemma. We might have to take two or three cabins down to find the right replacement logs to match the color, the patina and the size. The majority of this one is original. We had one or two logs to replace, but it's all original. This is the ultimate antique."

Bow said there's still some work to be done on the cabin, but it's only about a week and a half away from completion.

"We reconstructed this whole thing on our yard before we brought it down from our yard outside of Lewisburg in White Sulfur Springs," Bow said. "This is what we do for a living."

Sherman Thompson, owner of Antique Cabins and Barns, said getting a cabin that's almost all original material is important.

"You're preserving history," Thompson said. "It will be here from now on."

The museum, which is currently undergoing renovation, is expected to reopen by early 2009.

The previous museum has been closed since 2004 and all the attractions put into storage.