Take a walk through Tennessee’s rich history
Published 8:40 am Monday, November 5, 2018
BY GOV. BILL HASLAM
You hear me talk a lot about how great this state is, but now there’s a special place where people can see for themselves what an amazing story Tennessee has to tell.
This month we opened the spacious new Tennessee State Museum as part of the Bicentennial Capitol Mall in Nashville. The museum takes visitors along a visual timeline with extraordinary items from Tennessee’s rich past to help them learn about our state, from the era before people even lived on this land to what is happening today.
It is, to say the least, a remarkable story.
We were especially fortunate at the grand opening of the museum to have U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander put the story of Tennessee into context. Senator Alexander recalled how when he successfully ran for governor 40 years ago he walked across our state, over 1,000 miles, and how his campaign trek took six months. But visit the museum, he said, and today you can make that walk across Tennessee in just 30 minutes.
Your visit to the museum will likely take more than 30 minutes, because you will be fascinated by the presentations of information about each era. It makes the story available in different ways to fit your taste. You can learn from a series of video accounts explaining what happened along the way. You can gaze at rare items from our past that give you a feel for what the times were like. Or you can enjoy interactive displays, like learning something about each county in our state within the larger story of the Civil War.
The museum is perfect for a family visit. If you believe your children might not be as interested in a museum as you are, the museum has a treat, a Children’s Gallery, where kids can simply play, likely learning something about Tennessee at the same time.
The museum has six permanent exhibitions telling our history from the origins of the land to such an exciting modern-day era. But the building also has temporary galleries, where current exhibits feature the work of master artist Red Grooms or highlight the state’s musical heritage.
So whether your interest is in art or artifacts, what happened in Memphis or what happened in Mountain City, or whether you are 5 or 95, you will find an informative, memorable experience.
For more than 35 years, the state museum, one of the oldest and largest state museums in the nation, had been in the lower levels of the James K. Polk State Office Building in Nashville. In 1937, the legislature created the state museum that sat in the lower level of the War Memorial Building. Our museum needed a modern home. The Tennessee General Assembly appropriated $120 million to give the museum the location it deserves, and more than $30 million in private contributions have been raised to help make it happen.
You don’t have to be a Tennessean to appreciate the Tennessee State Museum. Give yourself and your family some time to explore our state’s past, and be prepared to learn something you never knew before. Take that walk Senator Alexander describes so well. Tennessee’s history is America’s history and the new museum is an experience that will explain in its own way what a great state Tennessee is and has always been.