Montville — The Tantaquidgeon Museum in Uncasville will reopen in mid-May after several months of renovations to even the floors and update exhibits, its director said.

The museum, which was founded in 1931 at 1819 Norwich-New London Turnpike, is considered the oldest Native American museum in the United States.

It has been closed since January as museum staff members oversee work on the building's display rooms.

The floor in one of the exhibit rooms devoted to displaying stone tools was “very crooked,” Museum Director Anita Fowler said.

“We decided we needed to fix the floor while we were down for the winter,” she said.

The room got new floors and a new coat of white paint. Then, museum staff decided to do the same for its other display areas.

“It looked so good, we decided we were going to do the other rooms,” Fowler said.

The stone room will now be used for storage, and the displays in the museum’s other rooms will focus more on Mohegan artifacts in particular, instead of the wide range of Native American objects the museum has accumulated, Fowler said.

Anything put into storage might later be included in temporary exhibits, she said.

m.shanahan@theday.com