Former President Bill Clinton was in Little Rock Wednesday to break ground at the library park on the edge of the River Market District, bringing the Clinton Presidential Library one step closer to reality.

The $125 million-$150 million complex is scheduled to be completed in 2004 and will house the Presidential Library and Archives as well as the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. Nearly all funding for the project will come from private donations.

Clinton joked, saying he hoped to build the library in less time than it took to build the medieval cathedrals and Egyptian pyramids. The complex covers more than 27 acres on the Arkansas River.

Organizers hope the library complex will draw tourists and local residents to learn about Clinton’s time in office.

“Presidential libraries give people access to history and stories that shaped our nation,” Clinton said.

The library will house documents of the last years of the 20th century and the dawn of the new millennium, he said.

Letters, memos and e-mails that explain why the United States began its peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, among other topics, will be displayed in the library. Clinton said his is the largest collection of handwritten notes of any president.

“While this library will expose the past, we won't stop thinking about tomorrow,” he said, referring to the theme song to his 1992 presidential campaign, Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop.”

Clinton said he wants Americans to understand where the country has been and where it will go in the future. This can be understood by studying the past, he said.

Clinton said the UA Clinton School of Public Service will be a valuable tool in teaching young people how to serve their nation’s people.

One of the most interesting exhibits in the library, Clinton said, will be a letter written by his mother more than 50 years ago to a friend. In the letter, she explains the heartbreak of losing Clinton’s father in a car wreck three months before Clinton was born. The friend saved the letter and sent it to Clinton shortly after his mother’s death.

But his most prized possession in the exhibit hall might be a saxophone made in the Czech Republic given to him by the country’s President Havell, Clinton said while talking to a small crowd after the ceremony.

Clinton’s wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, could not attend the ceremony because of voting in the Senate, Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey said.