CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — The Benton County Historical Society is getting ready to move a stuffed moose with detachable antlers — the better to fit through doors — and about 60,000 other items of an Oregon historian's collection to a new museum. The collections of the mothballed Horner Museum are stuffed in the basement of Gill Coliseum at Oregon State University and have been out of public view since the school closed the museum in 1995 to save money.

In 2005, the historical society and the university signed a transfer agreement, and the society plans a downtown Corvallis museum to showcase some of the artifacts.

The Horner Museum opened in 1925, when John Horner, a longtime professor at Oregon Agricultural College, pulled together various collections. It was named for Horner in 1936, three years after he died. It moved to Gill Coliseum in 1951.

On Thursday, in the basement of the coliseum, the historical society's collections manager, Mary Gallagher, packed a box of antique kitchen and cooking items as the stuffed moose loomed in the background. Students loaded it on a waiting moving van.

Between trips to the moving van, students looked over items: the moose, carriages, whale vertebrae sitting on a shelf.

"It's cool seeing all the old bones, the big old moose ... It's weird that it's all underneath the gym," said freshman Chris Granger, who was helping as part of his fraternity's service requirements.

The work Thursday was just to reduce the clutter for the big move, which will start in mid-March, said Ron Thiesen, development director for the society.

Oregon State plans to move a sports medicine center into the basement space the artifacts occupied, and the women's basketball team will have a locker room in the former sports medicine site, said Steve Fenk, assistant athletic director for communications.

Information from: Corvallis Gazette-Times, article by Kyle Odegard, February 2008