For more information, or to arrange for tours, interviews and press packets, please contact Jay Green, Acting Head, National Visitor Center, Information Staff, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Beltsville, MD 20750, phone (301) 504-9403, fax (301) 504-6689, [email protected]. For photos contact Anita Daniels, Photo Editor, ARS Information Staff, phone (301) 344-2956, fax (301) 344-2325, [email protected].

Open House at ARS National Visitor Center

Beltsville, Md., April 16--The past shakes hands with the future as the Agricultural Research Service's newly refurbished National Visitor Center holds an open house for the public the week of April 28 - May 2.

Located in the historic Log Lodge in Beltsville, the ARS National Visitor Center features exhibits and audiovisual presentations on agricultural research, and guided tours of the surrounding 7,000-acre Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.

Recently updated exhibits at the National Visitor Center portray the extensive mission of ARS, the principal science agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Visitors can get the latest information on a variety of projects including animal and crop breeding and production; genome mapping; biological control of diseases and insect pests; soil, water and air quality; and human nutrition.

According to Darwin Murrell, Director of ARS' Beltsville Area, the visitor center hosts thousands of guests each year, from local elementary school classes to foreign dignitaries. "In fact, the visitor center plays a key ambassadorial role, serving as a window on agricultural research in America for visiting scientific and diplomatic groups," said Murrell.

The visitor center and its exhibits of state-of-the-art research technology are housed in a building that typifies an earlier era of horsedrawn plows and rural simplicity. The lodge was built during the Great Depression as a recreation center for men working in four nearby Civilian Conservation Corps camps. Completed in 1937, the structure served as a CCC entertainment facility until the organization was disbanded in 1942.

Modeled after lodges in Yellowstone National Park, the structure is made from pine logs up to 50 feet long and large upright timbers of white oak. During construction, the CCC built a sawmill onsite to cut and fashion the timbers, all of which came from "the farm," as the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) was known at the time.

After the brief era of the CCC, the Log Lodge was used primarily as a dining hall for the researchers and support staff of BARC, but its rustic design and bucolic setting within the shadow of the Nation's Capital soon attracted interest as a unique facility for entertaining foreign dignitaries. Over the years, many VIP luncheons were held in the unusual structure. President and Mrs. Dwight Eisenhower hosted Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev and his wife Nina at the Log Lodge in the 1950s.

The visitor center's open house will run from Monday, April 28 to Friday, May 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Groups of five or more are asked to call ahead.