basement of Mr. Hagerstrand's home. In 1966, a formal design contract was negotiated with the architectural-engineering firm of Hudgins, Thompson, Ball, and Associates (of Tulsa, Oklahoma), which included a provision that Charles "Chief" Boyd would be the designer of the project. Mr. Boyd and his family then moved to Tulsa from Colorado and joined the firm. Resource materials on Cherokee culture and history were available in the Cherokee Collection at the library of the local college – Northeastern State University (NSU). There was also a collection of papers and pamphlets at the Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa and pertinent reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution. The late Dr. Jack Frederick Kilpatrick, a noted scholar of Cherokee heritage and student of Cherokee history (then Professor of Music at Southern Methodist University) offered substantial guidance and technical advice during the planning period and during construction of the village. Date and descriptions developed by Drs. Kneberg and Lewis at the University of Tennessee were also helpful. Architect Boyd also researched the Cherokee past, with particular attention to structures, and arrived independently at a "format" for the ancient village which corresponded basically to previous concepts developed by Hagerstrand and Kilpatrick. Construction begins Actual work commenced on the site of the future Heritage Center on February 23, 1966, under the supervision of Col. Hagerstrand who had agreed to terminate his private business interests and work full-time on the project as General Manager. The Cherokee Foundation, a private charitable foundation organized and largely maintained by Chief Keeler at Bartlesville, Oklahoma agreed to underwrite his salary and expenses during the construction period. Starting with a work crew of twelve full-blood Cherokees, the initial effort involved selective clearing of the jungle of vines, bushes and trees which covered the entire site, and filling the sink holes that had a century before been a small basement under the old Cherokee seminary building, as well as excavating and salvaging foundation rock from the old seminary for later use. The force soon grew to four crews with up to 52 Cherokees employed. Village construction actually started in May 1966 and continued for over a year. Hand labor, native materials, and ancient methods were used in order to create the most authentic atmosphere possible. A three-month "villager" training program, conducted in cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and NSU, was instituted in the late Spring of 1967