DEADWOOD - Until a Deadwood research center gets $500,000 in donations, construction plans will have to wait on the building that houses priceless Homestake Mining Company artifacts.

The Homestake Archives Research Center project is guided by the Adams Museum of Deadwood. It houses hundreds of Homestake papers, photos, data sets, hardware and other items exclusive to the 125-year-old mine that flourished in Lead until 2002.

The city purchased an empty warehouse building on Sherman Street that holds the artifacts that were physically transferred from Lead to Deadwood a year ago. However, creation of a viable research center requires about $2.6 million in work and presently HARC leaders need another $500,000 to pay for the work.

If enough money comes in soon, construction can begin with completion by early summer of 2010, according to Adams Museum director Mary Kopco.

HARC project leader Carolyn Weber said the facility itself would not serve as a public museum. Instead, it would provide a ample database for researchers to safely access and study the documents and artifacts in the collections.

The center is already doing that, Weber said. Since the collection was brought in in September 2008, Weber and her staff have helped researchers and students access 8,500 documents. "We've been able to be quite helpful to a lot of people," Weber said.

Weber said about 20 percent of the material is not yet cataloged and volunteers can earn Black Hills State University credit if they want to help process the collection.