McMinnville
A 4.5-ounce slice of the 15.5-ton Willamette Meteorite, the
largest ever discovered in North America, has returned to
Oregon. Evergreen Aviation
Museum founder and owner Del Smith purchased at auction
for $10,000 a portion of the celestial body sliced off for
scientific study in 1997. The museum will unveil the piece of
meteorite this summer, with its permanent residence planned for
a not-yet-constructed space museum. The American Museum of
Natural History in New York City continues to display the rest
of the 10-foot meteorite, found in West Linn in 1902.
