Amy Sowder; asowder@pnj.com

The Rosasco family's roots run deep in Pensacola.

In a few years, visitors will know how wide the timber-business family's reach was.

Bob Rosasco has pledged a $100,000 donation to the University of West Florida Foundation. The foundation will use that money and a $100,000 matching grant to build a conference room at the Vice Adm. John H. Fetterman State of Florida Maritime Museum and Research Center.

An estimated 300,000 people a year could stroll through the museum, which will house the "Rosasco Brothers Conference Room," museum project coordinator Miller Caldwell said recently. The museum is scheduled to open in 2009.

"It'll make me very proud," said Bob Rosasco, great-grandson of one brother, Albert T. Rosasco. "My family went far back in Pensacola history and was very involved in the maritime business way back when."

Beginning in the mid 1800s, Albert T. and William S. Rosasco chopped and sawed the Pensacola area's timber. The family sailed the timber from Northwest Florida to Genoa, Italy, before the Nazis took their ships, he said.

The brothers started with sailing ships and then converted to steam ships. At one time, the Rosascos owned about 65,000 acres of timberland in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, Bob Rosasco said.

The community can learn of local histories like that of this family within the museum.

It will present exhibits and education opportunities in: nautical archaeology, marine biology, environmental studies and maritime history. Original research in these areas will be encouraged, said Dean Van Galen, a UWF Foundation representative.

"For example, UWF recently hosted the consul general of Spain to discuss a possible Spanish exhibit in the museum," said Van Galen, who also is vice president of the university's development. "The conference room will serve as a great venue for community members to meet with such a guest."

The Museum and Research Center will be dedicated to the continued education, preservation and research of Florida's cultural and natural maritime resources.