RIDGECREST, Calif. -- On Monday, ABC 23 told you about the China Lake Navy Museum looking to expand, but it's not the only museum looking to grow and grow tourism in Ridgecrest.

The museum's website says its a little museum "in the middle of nowhere." While the size of the building may be small, officials who run it have large aspirations for the future as they hope to make the museum a major stop for tourists wanting to check out the Northern Mojave Desert, the Indian Wells Valley and even Death Valley.

The history of the Northern Mojave Desert and Indian Wells Valley is vast, interesting and constantly being discovered.

"If you walk out on the desert here, you will find archaeological artifacts everywhere, if you know what to look for," says Sandy Rogers, the Maturango Museum's Archaeology Curator. "Most people don't know what to look for and walk right past them. Which is a good thing because your suppose to leave them there and not pick them up."

So, its a good thing the Maturango Museum is around, with hundreds of artifacts and interactive displays and, here in the desert, that's just the tip of the iceberg as the museum has thousands of artifacts in storage.

The goal is to show off more of those items in the future, as the museum looks to expand.

"We're pretty excited about it," said Harris Brokke, Executive Director and CEO of the museum. "We're going to more than double the size of the museum, and in these tough times that's a pretty ambitious project, but we intend to do it."

The museum also offers educational programs for schools and groups, arranges tours of ancient petroglyphs on the China Lake Naval Base and serves as the desert visitors center.

"A large number of people come here simply for tourist information," said Jane Larson, Acting Manager of the Museum Gift Shop, who adds that people come from far and wide. "We had people this week from Eastern Europe and Korea, so all over the world, literally. They're pretty interested in the desert."

Interest in the desert and the museum, where there's an interesting tale about the name.

"There was a chief, apparently, named Maturango," said Liz Babcock, the museum's History Curator. "Some people at one point wanted to name the town Maturango, because Ridgecrest is not a real distinctive name. There were some other people who said Maturango means horse manure. But, in looking into it, i think they were just people who wanted to defeat the move to change the name of the town, because there is absolutely no evidence of that."

The museum was first founded in 1962 and is run primarily by volunteers.

Between the Navy Museum of Armament and Technology and the Maturango Museum, there is a concerted effort in Ridgecrest to increase tourism, especially trying to get people living on the west side of the county, in the valley, out to the desert.

For more information on the museum, visit their website: http://www.maturango.org/