The Georgia Museum of Art is located on the University of Georgia campus in Athens and has been the official art museum of the state of Georgia since 1982. It started in 1948 in the basement of the old library on the university’s North Campus. In April 1996, the museum opened a new building in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university’s East Campus. The museum has over 18,000 objects in its permanent collection, an increase from the core of 100 paintings museum founder Alfred Heber Holbrook donated. Its permanent collection includes American paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, American, European, and Asian works on paper, southern decorative arts, and Asian art.
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The Georgia State Railroad Museum is home to more than 40 railroad locomotives and cars and house in the historic Georgia State Railroad Museum roundhouse. The building dates to 1851, but the railroad demolished about half of the roundhouse in 1926 and re-engineered the facility to accommodate larger steam engines. Southern Railway, successor of the Central of Georgia Railroad, closed the facility in 1963 and subsequently started demolishing buildings on the property. The Coastal Heritage Society in 1989 took over management of the facility to preserve the shops for future generations.
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Marietta’s own Glover Machine works built locomotive No. 81421 was in 1916. Coulbourn Brothers operated the 2-6-0 narrow gauge steam engine as No. 4. The steamer returned to Glover Machine Works in 1921. It has been displayed in Marietta since 1992.
Along a busy stretch of Windy Hill Road lies a 19th century cemetery, the last vestages of the antebellum residence of Asbury Hargrove. Roughly 20 people are buried in the cemetery. Hargrove was born in 1809 and died in 1879. Between July 6-15, 1864, Brig. Gen. Edward M. McCook used the residence as his headquarters.
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The High Museum of Art, the premier art museum in the South, is in the midst of a multi-year partnership with The Museum of Modern Art. Through 2013, the partnership will bring many international exhibitions to Atlanta and past exhibitions have included masterpieces by Claude Monet and Leonardo de Vinci.
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Hurricane Shoals Park is a public park near Commerce and Maysville, Georgia, that showcases exposed granite shoals along the North Oconee River. The park, spanning over 71.3 acres, officially opened to the public in 1978, but its history dates back to the 1780s. Early settlement began at the site, once a Creek and Cherokee Indian camping ground called Yamtrahoochee. Several buildings were constructed, including a fort, schoolhouse, grist mill, and Baptist church. There is a covered bridge that dates back to 1872, which spans across the North Oconee River. The Hurricane Shoals Park Association Inc. was formed in 1962 to protect the historic area as a recreational facility.
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The James Jackson Memorial in downtown Jefferson, Georgia, honors an American Revolution hero and general of the Georgia Militia. He is also the namesake of Jackson County, Georgia. Jackson served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He also served as the 23rd Governor of Georgia from 1798 to 1801. The Jackson County Bicentennial Committee dedicated the monument, which is on the grounds of the Historic Jackson County Courthouse, on May 11, 1996.
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The Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, Ga., includes sites related to President Jimmy Carter. The site includes his boyhood farm, his former school and the town railroad depot, which served as his campaign headquarters during the 1976 election. Carter, the 39th President of the United States, was born in 1924 in Plains and still lives in the small town.
