PETERSBURG, Ky. — On this day the heavens didn't cooperate.

        Hundreds of supporters tramped through mud; endured a freezing rain; turned up their collars against a stiff, cold wind and gathered under gray skies for Saturday's groundbreaking ceremony for the Creation Museum and Family Discovery Center.

        Answers in Genesis, a group that believes in the biblical account of the history of the Earth, wants to build the biggest museum of its kind in the world — one that promotes a creationist view of the world as revealed in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.

Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis is flanked by a Tyrannosaurus Rex sculpture at the Creation Museum groundbreaking in Boone County on Saturday. (Brandi Stafford photo) | ZOOM |

        About $4 million has been raised of the $14 million needed to construct the 95,000-square-foot museum and center on 47 acres in rural western Boone County.

        “It's the message we're promoting,” said Ken Ham, executive director of the group, as he stood outside a huge tent in the middle of the open field. “We're confronting head-on the secular humanists, we're confronting the evolutionists. We're telling people that biblical history is true. That's why I see it attracting a lot of attention worldwide. There's nothing like this in the world.”

        Mr. Ham said the thousands of visitors expected each year will probably include mainstream scientists who think that the Earth is billions of years old and that humans and other forms of life evolved over millions of years.

        “This is a place not just for Christians,” said Mr. Ham. “We hope they bring their non-Christian friends. We know some will come to critique it. We're causing people to think and we're challenging people.”

        Mr. Ham said the museum and center may open in phases, beginning in about 18 months.

        The ground-breaking ceremony was kept short because of the weather. Religious music drifted from speakers across a muddy landscape dotted with a handful of dinosaur models. Children climbed aboard a saddle draped across the back of a model Triceratops. A small model Velociraptor, a dinosaur etched into the popular imagination in the movie “Jurassic Park,” sat inside the tent with a sign saying the creature was created not millions of years ago, but in 4000 BC.

        “We're here to show our support,” said Patty Callen of Piner, Ky., who came with her mother and her two children.

        Steven and Carol Trumbo, of Alexandria, Ky., and their three children each grabbed a shovel and excavated a shovelful of dirt.

        “We're here because of our belief in Jesus,” said Mrs. Trumbo.

        “We have a great desire to see the museum open. This is a great event for all Christians.”

        Anita Hay of Florence came to the ceremony with her six children. They went, she said, “because of the opportunity it will provide our family to get a realistic picture of the history of creation.”

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