WHITETHORNE -- Virginia Tech is opening the historic Kentland property to the public this weekend, even offering visitors a chance to watch as archaeologists locate additional grave sites of slaves who once worked the property.

Saturday's "Community Heritage Day" will focus on the storied past of the land now known as Virginia Tech's Kentland Farm, as well as the history of surrounding communities.

American Indians inhabited, or at least used, Kentland for thousands of years before the first settlers arrived in the 1700s.

The New River Valley's first white homestead was located at Kentland, which became an early gateway to the frontier because of a natural ford in the New River.

James Randal Kent built Southwest Virginia's largest antebellum plantation on the land in the early- to mid-1800s.

Kent's sizeable slave population built the brick manor house that still stands on the property, which is now a Virginia Tech agricultural research farm.

The Kent era of Kentland's past will be spotlighted during Saturday's community day.

Organizers will lead tours of the plantation manor. The house, which was built from bricks that were hand-forged on site by slaves, dates back to around 1830 and still features much of the original handiwork.

A group of local residents and historians, including Virginia Tech's Sam Cook, hope to restore the house and use it for historical education.

Visitors will also have an opportunity to see ongoing work to locate the graves of former Kentland slaves.

In fall 2004, archaeologists confirmed the presence of a long-lost slave cemetery on a hill overlooking the manor house.

Employing noninvasive excavation techniques to avoid disturbing buried remains, archaeologist Tom Klatka and a team of students from Tech and Radford University identified at least a dozen unmarked graves on the hill.

Klatka is back at Kentland doing more extensive surveys of the cemetery. The state archaeologist for Western Virginia, Klatka and a crew of students are using hand tools to smooth the bottoms of several shallow trenches dug into the hillside.

The group is looking for changes in the color and organic makeup of the subsoil that indicate where several layers of soil were dug up, commingled (likely in a dirt pile) and returned to the hole.

On Thursday morning, the crew had located at least four more possible grave sites in one trench, with more likely further down the trench. Klatka said he returned to the site at the request of residents of the nearby community of Wake Forest, which was established by Kentland slaves following the Civil War.

The additional trenches, which measure roughly 175 linear meters total, should help Klatka estimate the size of the cemetery.

"The only way we could ever know how many graves are here is to uncover the entire hillside," Klatka said this week while standing amid the trenches.

Klatka will also lead tours of the cemetery site.

Cook, who is an associate professor of American Indian and Appalachian studies at Tech, said the purpose of Saturday's events is to expose the local community to the region's history and culture as well as build support to "revive Kentland historic district."

Other events planned for the community day, which runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., include demonstrations by the New River Coal Mining Heritage Association, hayrides, millstone cutting and live bluegrass music.