Organizational support allowed him this freedom. The Museum Branch was still a unit of the Natural History Division. As chief naturalist, John E. Doerr gave the museum program solid administrative backing. He trusted Burns and permitted him a free hand in professional matters. The Biology, Geology, and Interpretive branches that composed the rest of Doerr's division reflected his attitude and cooperated with the Museum Branch effectively.

A reorganization of the Washington Office following Director Newton B. Drury's resignation on March 31, 1951, made Arthur Demaray director, Conrad L. Wirth associate director, and Ronald Lee assistant director for research and interpretation. All three were park museum advocates. Lee, who had worked closely with the Museum Branch while chief historian, now held line authority over it through Doerr. Lee's successor as chief historian, Herbert E. Kahler, continued this cooperative relationship with Burns' branch. It was an auspicious time for park museums, even though the Korean War dominated public attention.

Among the four exhibit construction projects initiated in 1950 Ocmulgee received a measure of priority. The museum would be unusually large. It had to house the many artifacts recovered from a massive archeological investigation of an extensive, long-occupied site, and it was also expected to provide research facilities for the study of collections from sites throughout the southeastern states. A third of the structure, completed before the war, already sheltered specimens from other important digs. Enough exhibit space was needed to interpret with selected artifacts the Ocmulgee story that the archeologists had pieced together. Applying the principle that a park museum should have no more exhibits than necessary to interpret the park's features-its primary exhibits-Ocmulgee would still require fifty units, whereas such museums usually had fewer than 25.

The new construction carried out the prewar architectural concept in general. It produced a cast concrete building more akin to the creative architecture of the Tennessee Valley Authority than conventional park structures. With part of its lower story buried in a mound of earth, the museum when finished gave visitors at least a subliminal impression of the site's ancient mound-top temples as well as a sweeping view over the adjacent remains. Frank Buffmire prepared imaginative layouts based on the prewar exhibit plan by John Ewers. Archeologist Charles Fairbanks from the park acted as special curator while the exhibits were in production. He selected the specimens to display, procured from Indian craftsmen reproductions of such perishable objects as burden baskets and atlatls for which secondary evidence survived, and did yeoman work to assure the accuracy of labels, illustrations, and models. To meet its target date the laboratory turned for the first time to an outside exhibit contractor for a few of the panel displays. Burns accompanied the laboratory crew that installed the exhibits in time for the museum opening on November 2, 1951.

By then production of the Custer Battlefield exhibits assumed priority. In 1939 Congress had directed the secretary of war to build a museum there as a memorial to Custer and his men and to accept a valuable and appropriate collection of artifacts and documents bequeathed by Custer's widow.20 It appropriated no funds for the purpose, however, and within a year the War Department transferred the battlefield to the Interior Department. When pressure for the museum resumed after the war, Congress provided $96,000 for its construction in the 1950 fiscal year, adding $31,200 in 1951 to prepare and install the exhibits.

Designed to fit unobtrusively into the sagebrush landscape, the building had a low profile and plain exterior. Inside it met museum requirements well with a practical exhibit room on the main floor and a study collection room with walk-in vault on the lower floor. Planning for the museum engaged the park and regional office along with the Museum Branch. Superintendent Edward S. Luce and his wife, Evelyn, had prepared a museum prospectus in 1947. Major Luce, a veteran of the 7th Cavalry and its dedicated historian, brought to it experience as a trooper, intimate familiarity with the terrain, and long study of the literature. His wife contributed intensive research in the documentary evidence and balanced his natural bias with cold fact. Both collaborated unstintingly with the Museum Branch throughout the project. Regional museum planner Harry Robinson not only worked on the exhibit plan but produced an illustrated guide to the museum as yet unmatched by any other park.

Two aspects of the Custer museum particularly challenged Burns and his laboratory staff. One concerned the effective use of the rich collection of Custer artifacts. While the Museum Branch was determined to use these specimens to the fullest, the growing realization of responsibility for object conservation taxed the curators and preparators when it came to installing historic flags, uniforms, documents, and other environmentally sensitive materials. The second aspect involved the sequence in which the exhibits should tell the story. After much thought it was agreed to begin the presentation with the shocking climax. Succeeding exhibits would then attempt to unravel the mystery of what had happened to leave Custer and every man under his immediate command dead on the field of battle. This decision gave crucial importance to the diorama of Custer's Last Stand. It should depict the scene not as previous artists had imagined it, but as accurately as close analysis of all available evidence would permit. As a master of the medium Burns himself modeled the figure of Custer. The result and the installation as a whole brought him deserved satisfaction when the museum opened on June 25, 1952.