James A. Leach: “Mr. Speaker, the coin authorized by this act will commemorate the opening of a museum that is long overdue, the…”

“Mr. Speaker, the coin authorized by this act will commemorate the opening of a museum that is long overdue, the Smithsonian's new National Museum of the American Indian, under construction just a few blocks away, between the Air and Space Museum and the Capitol Building. The museum will hold as remarkable a collection of items from this country's and this hemisphere's past as exists. It will be the last museum the Smithsonian, the world's largest museum complex, will build on the National Mall and the third physical installation of a truly stunning personal collection of Native American artifacts now donated to the Smithsonian. The five floors of the museum will be the storehouse of a vast collection of Native American artifacts, items from Canada and Central and South America, as well as the United States, many of which were collected by a New York tycoon named George Gustav Heye. Mr. Heye, in nearly half a century of voracious collecting ending with his death in 1957, amassed nearly 800,000 individual Native American items and another 86,000 photographic images. The items span nearly 10,000 years.”