Information
Landmark: Historic WestvilleCity: Columbus City
Country: USA Georgia
Continent: North America
Historic Westville, Columbus City, USA Georgia, North America
Overview
Historic Westville brought 19th‑century South Georgia to life, with costumed interpreters and creaking wooden porches, before moving to Columbus to reach more people and secure its future.It shut its doors for good in 2024, but the echo of its role as a vibrant cultural and educational hub still lingers.The site blended elegant architecture, skilled craftsmanship, and lively first‑person storytelling to draw visitors into the sights and sounds of the American South between the 1840s and 1860s.Historic Westville began with John Word West (1876–1961), a schoolteacher and historian who poured his heart into preserving the tools, fabrics, and everyday artifacts of antebellum Georgia.In 1928, West launched the “Fair of 1850” in Jonesboro, Georgia, bringing to life the sights and routines of a mid-19th century Southern village, from dusty dirt roads to the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer.He gathered old buildings, worn artifacts, and weathered tools from across the region, then brought them together in one spot so visitors could learn their stories.He imagined something between a museum and a historical theme park, yet it always carried the weight of a clear educational mission, like a guide pointing out worn cobblestones from centuries past.After West died, a team of historians and preservationists moved quickly to save his collection, its leather-bound volumes gathering dust on sagging shelves.In 1966, Westville Historic Handicrafts was founded in Lumpkin, Georgia, and four years later its doors opened to visitors, welcoming them with the smell of fresh wood shavings from the carpenters’ shop.For more than forty years, the site in Lumpkin welcomed thousands-families, school groups, and researchers drawn to Southern heritage-where the air often carried the scent of old pine.By the early 2010s, visits had dwindled, the site sat far from town, and upkeep costs kept climbing, making the Lumpkin location untenable.They decided to move the museum to Columbus, a bigger city with busy tourist spots, well-established cultural venues, and easier access by road and rail.They kicked off the relocation in 2014, a job that meant dismantling, hauling, and piecing back together 17 historic buildings-each brick tagged and stacked like a giant jigsaw.We’re creating a new site layout in Columbus that keeps the warm brick streets and timeless charm of a 19th‑century Southern town.We’re updating the utilities and amenities to meet today’s museum standards, all while keeping the building’s original character-right down to the creak of its old wooden floors.Historic Westville swung its doors open again in Columbus on June 22, 2019, greeting visitors with the creak of old wood and the scent of fresh hay.At its height in Columbus, Historic Westville buzzed like a living village, with costumed guides strolling past weathered wooden porches and artisans showing their craft.The site was designed to evoke a Southern town from the mid-1800s, complete with the ring of a blacksmith’s hammer, tidy clapboard homes, a small schoolhouse, and sturdy civic halls.The Old Chattahoochee County Courthouse, built in 1854 and one of Georgia’s oldest wooden courthouses, once hosted legal demonstrations and lively interpretive programs that brought 19th‑century governance and civic life to vivid focus-its pine floors creaking under the weight of history.Built in 1845 from warm, resin-scented heart pine by enslaved hands, Billingslea House later served as both an office and a space for exhibits.It offered a sharp lens that drew visitors into the tangled realities of race, class, and labor in the antebellum South, like stepping onto a dusty street lined with faded storefronts.Wells House, first raised by the Yuchi tribe, stands as an architectural treasure, blending Native American craftsmanship with the sturdy lines of European design.It shed light on how Indigenous peoples shaped Southern culture, from the food on the table to the stories told by firelight.Built in 1831, Stewart County Academy once served as both a schoolhouse and a Masonic lodge, now offering a glimpse into early lessons scratched on slate and the way neighbors organized their town.The Tift House, Blacksmith Shop, Cabinetmaker’s Shop, and Kitchen Gardens hosted lively demonstrations of everyday trades, farming, and household tasks-like the sharp ring of a hammer on steel-forming the heart of Westville’s hands-on learning.Historic Westville’s heart was in bringing history to life, letting visitors learn by stepping straight into the sights, sounds, and daily rhythm of the past.Instead of peering at artifacts behind glass like in a traditional museum, visitors stepped into furnished homes, settled into worn wooden school desks, and watched craftspeople shape and carve with tools straight out of the 1800s.Every day, you can watch a blacksmith at work-hammering out tools, nails, and horseshoes in the glow of a roaring forge.Weaving and spinning bring textiles to life on traditional looms, the wooden frames creaking softly as threads tighten into cloth.Carpentry: crafting furniture and building parts by hand with period tools, like the smooth heft of a well-worn wooden plane.Open-hearth cooking brings historic kitchens to life, with crackling fires and cast-iron pots showcasing antebellum foodways.Printmaking: working an antique press, its metal levers creaking, to bring old newspapers or posters back to life.Dressed in period clothing, interpreters brought history to life-some slipping into the roles of famous figures, others simply guiding guests past the smell of fresh timber-adding both authenticity and depth.They didn’t just do the work-they drew visitors into lively talks about history, social norms, slavery, politics, and the sweeping technological changes of the 1800s, sometimes pausing to show a worn iron tool from the era.School tours, heritage days, and seasonal festivals-like the candlelit charm of Old-Time Christmas-were at the heart of its educational outreach.Despite bringing 19th‑century Columbus to life with charm and rich detail, Historic Westville kept wrestling with heavy financial strain-keeping dozens of weathered wooden buildings standing, paying staff, and preserving history doesn’t come cheap.COVID-19 Pandemic: From 2020 to 2022, the site took a hard hit as closures emptied its halls and visitor numbers dropped sharply.Revenue kept slipping.Fewer people walked through the doors, and donor checks grew scarce, making it harder and harder to keep the lights on.In 2023, the museum shut its doors for a short review, the echo of footsteps fading from its empty halls.In February 2024, the Board of Directors decided-after much debate-to close Historic Westville for good, locking its weathered wooden gates one final time.Without a big jump in visitors or fresh funding, keeping the museum staffed and running just isn’t worth the expense-even the lights in the main hall cost a fortune.With Historic Westville closing its doors, Georgia loses one of its most immersive, hands-on glimpses into the past-where the scent of fresh-baked cornbread once drifted from a wood-fired stove.Still, its impact endures-it opened the door for thousands of students to glimpse life in the pre-Civil War South, where dusty streets echoed with the clatter of horse-drawn wagons.It saved rare historic buildings, the kind with weathered brick and creaking wooden doors, that would’ve vanished otherwise.It bridged the gap between scholarly research and everyday understanding, like bringing dusty archive stories into a lively town square.It celebrated the rich fabric of Southern life-its objects, its many voices, and its tangled histories-during a pivotal moment, when cotton bales lined the docks and debates stirred every town square.Some of its old stone buildings and worn artifacts might still be saved, or even carried off to find a new home in another heritage museum.The village may be quiet now, but Historic Westville still sets the standard for living history-teaching, drawing people in, and sparking inspiration, much like the smell of fresh bread from its old brick oven once did.It played a key role in Georgia’s cultural identity and offered a treasured window into the human stories tucked behind the brick facades and worn porches of the 19th-century American South.
