The New Mexico History Museum, when it opens in May 2009, will cover five centuries of state history, beginning just before the first Spanish explorations in the 1500s.

Upon entering, visitors will be able to look through a window at the north wall of the 400-year-old Palace of the Governors 15 feet away, where a rock foundation, brickwork and different types of adobe bricks are left exposed.

Then they'll step into the first core gallery — the Ortiz Sala of New Mexico History — named for one of the museum's prime promoters, the late Ambassador Frank Ortiz of Santa Fe.

"We start right in here with a wonderful immersive environment," explained Fran Levine, director of the Palace of the Governors and the History Division of the Museum of New Mexico, during a tour Friday.

"You'll walk through here past a curved wall that simulates a cliff face and we'll begin to tell the story of New Mexico just before written history, just as New Mexico was when the Spanish entered," she continued. "It takes us up to 1911, just before statehood."

Levine said exhibits in the street-level gallery — one of three in the 96,000-square-foot, 3 1/2-level building — will include Pueblo pottery, paintings, maps and uniforms from the Mexican-American War.

"It'll be things you can touch, the interactives," she said. "They're not simply cases on the wall. ... It's a very different type of technique than we've been able to use in the Palace of the Governors."

The basement level will include a stepped auditorium accessible from Washington Avenue, lockers for visiting schoolchildren and another core gallery focusing on the period from statehood through modern times.

Visitors walking down the stairs to the basement will hear recordings of debates over whether New Mexico should become a state. By the time they reach the bottom, the exhibits will turn to early tourism, the Great Depression and both world wars.

Among the exhibits will be the silver service from the USS New Mexico, uniforms from officers on the battleship and a cigar humidor in the shape of Taos Pueblo, made by the Tiffany Co. for the ship's captain. It is now in Gov. Bill Richardson's office.

"In that very far corner," Levine said, "is one of the really engaging immersive environments that we're building, centered around 109 E. Palace (Ave.)" — Santa Fe's secret office for the Manhattan Project. "That's one of the big surprises, how we're recreating ... the experience of the secrecy that surrounded the Los Alamos project."

Another small theater in the basement will show a fast-paced history from World War II to around 1970, including television footage about the Cold War. The basement also will include taped oral histories about the 20th century, such as the former African American community of Blackdom, near Roswell, which disappeared around World War I.

Upstairs in the new museum will be a gathering place for family activities with "discovery drawers" and computers, plus another gallery devoted to changing exhibits. Levine said shows already have been scheduled through 2012 — such as a 2010 show about women in the American West from the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles and a 2011 show about Ernest Thompson Seton of Santa Fe and the naturalist and conservation movements.

The top floor also includes public restrooms, a service kitchen and a coffee-and-light-snacks area. There also will be a rooftop terrace looking out from the southeast corner of the building over the Palace of the Governors, the Plaza and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Levine said the terrace will be "the most beautiful place in Santa Fe."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.