KIMBERLY – Something old and something new greeted Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., on his first visit to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

In a tour on Friday with his 12-year-old son, Anthony, Walden learned about the science of identifying prehistoric fossils, and then he scanned a field where the new $8.4 million Thomas Condon Paleontology Center is scheduled to open in 2004.

A groundbreaking for the new Paleo Center is scheduled for later this month.

Walden took advantage of an August recess from the U.S. Congress to swing through Eastern Oregon, staging a stop at Sumpter and Granite on Thursday morning to meet with the Eastern Oregon Mining Association and pan for gold with his son and continuing on to John Day that evening to help dedicate a new fairgrounds building at the Grant County Fair and host a fund-raising dinner.

At the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument on Friday, Walden met with employees of the park and received a tour of the construction site. Walden helped secure $8.4 million in last year’s Interior Appropriations bill to fund construction of the center.

Fossil beds superintendent Jim Hammett explained the need for expansion to showcase many of the monument’s 35,000 curated specimens. Visitors currently tour the main floor of the historic Cant Ranch house, where fossil displays are crowded into a pair of rooms.

The new visitor center, a single-level, steel-roofed building to be located west of Mascall Overlook, will feature 12- to 18-foot-high murals and three-dimensional depictions of some of the fossil beds’ more intriguing specimens, such as a saber-toothed tiger. The new visitor center also will highlight six prehistoric rock foundations through the use of sequential displays. The aim of the new center is realism.

“We’re trying to get the visitors immersed in the environment when the fossils were living,” Hammett explained.

Hammett said the National Park Service anticipates a doubling of visitation from 100,000 to 200,000 in five years with the new center. The vacated main floor of the Cant Ranch house will become a museum of ranching, particularly sheep ranching, a major influence on the region’s development.

Contractor for the new visitor center is 2G Construction of Eugene. Hammett said the new center has been in the planning stages for eight years.