EDITORIAL: Celebrate history and culture on Super Museum Sunday

Published 12:27 pm Friday, February 7, 2025

If football isn’t really what you’re into, how about visiting the museum on Sunday instead?

Local museums will celebrate Super Museum Sunday this week as part of the Georgia History Festival’s annual event. More than 100 museums and historic sites statewide will be open to the public for free this Sunday.

Locally, participating museums include Andalusia, the former home of famed writer Flannery O’Connor; the Brown-Stetson-Stanford House, located at 601 W. Greene St., the Old Governor’s Mansion, located at 120 S. Clarke St. and the Sallie Ellis Davis House, located at 301 S. Clarke St.

Although we are likely familiar with museums in Milledgeville, how many of us have actually visited?

Become a tourist in your own community and check them out.

Free tours of the Sallie Ellis Davis House, Andalusia, Georgia’s Old Governor’s Mansion will be offered at the top of each hour from 2 to 4 p.m.

Super Museum Sunday is part of the annual Georgia History Festival, the statewide K-12 educational event sponsored by the Georgia Historical Society.

This event aims to allow visitors the opportunity to get reacquainted with the historic sites, museums, and cultural institutions in their community and around our state.

This event reminds us all of how fortunate we are to have the historic sites and museums we have here locally. These local collections and exhibits are tremendous resources for local students and educators and they provide a pretty entertaining adventure for families to spend the day. Local residents who have never ventured to any of these sites may very well be surprised by their expansive collections.

The Old Governor’s Mansion and its rich High Greek Revival architecture reveals much about how life was when Milledgeville was our state’s capital. The Sallie Davis House shines a light on aspects of local history and the life of its educator namesake who taught countless students despite the harsh realities of segregation. There’s also the Georgia College Natural History Museum, the Heritage Center at The Depot, the John Marlor Arts Center, plus the historic trolley tours, among others.

If you’ve never visited one of these local museums, this is a perfect opportunity to do so. If you have visited in the past, take this opportunity to soak in a new aspect of local history.

Find dozens of places to step into the past at GaStateParks.org/SuperMuseumSunday.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to take in some sites and absorb some history and the arts.

There is so much to see and so much history to take. This Sunday, it’s all for free. Support these local museums and the local history that they champion and preserve.