Living History Museum

A South Dakota man wants to build a living history museum near Pierre that would rival colonial Williamsburg:

Mel Thorne's voice breaks and his eyes mist.

"Can you imagine what we could accomplish with this?" he asks. "Why, it could change the country," reorienting our moral compass away from sex and violence and back toward hard work, helping your neighbor - the values of the prairie.

And on a more practical level, "It could double the $800 million a year we get from tourism. Overnight."

"This" is Thorne's dream of a lifetime - the Dakota Territory Living History Museum, a sweeping, thousand-acre, hands-on celebration of South Dakota's heritage in Fort Pierre.

Think Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, only with a focus on Native Americans, Western pioneers and buffalo.

Thorne either is a pie-in-the-sky dreamer or a visionary. Truthfully, the line between the two usually isn't known until an idea fails or succeeds. So far, the jury is out on Thorne. But it's just such a darned intriguing idea, nobody wants to reject it out of hand.

"He's worked so hard on it that he's tugged everybody's heartstrings," said state Sen. Ed Olson of Mitchell, a board member of the nonprofit corporation formed to promote and build the attraction. "I told him that the chances of it being successful are not very good."