Аппалачи өңірінің мұражайы: Тарих пен мәдениетті сақтау

Museum in Norris, Tennessee

The Museum of Appalachia, located in Norris, Tennessee, 20 mile (32 km) north of Knoxville, is a living history museum that interprets the pioneer and early 20th century period of the Southern Appalachian region of the United States. Recently named an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum is a collection of more than 30 historic buildings rescued from neglect and decay and gathered onto of picturesque pastures and fields. The museum also preserves and displays thousands of authentic relics, maintains one of the nation's largest folk art collections, and hosts performances of traditional Appalachian music and annual demonstrations by hundreds of regional craftsmen. The museum was established in the 1960s by John Rice Irwin, an East Tennessee educator and businessman, who has followed the basic philosophy of preserving not only structures and artifacts relevant to the region's history, but also preserving each item's individual history— who owned it, when and how it was created or obtained, and how it was used. These oral histories and recollections are housed, along with thousands of photographs, in the museum's archives. Starting from a single log structure, the museum has grown over four decades to include buildings such as the National Register of Historic Places listed Arnwine Cabin, a rare Appalachian cantilever barn, and a cabin once inhabited by the parents and elder siblings of author Mark Twain. Relics on display include items owned by several notable or colorful Appalachian natives and thousands of tools detailing all aspects of rural life in Southern Appalachia.

Along with cabins and barns, the museum displays most types of buildings that would be found on a typical pioneer Appalachian farm, including smokehouses, corn cribs, animal pens, mills, an underground dairy and cellar, and a loom house. Blacksmith shops, a working saw mill, a rural schoolhouse, a log church, a broom and rope shop, and a leather shop— all fully equipped with contemporary materials— are also on display and are occasionally used for demonstrations.

The museum's two story Display Barn houses one of the nation's largest collections of pioneer frontier relics. Along with thousands of relics, the barn contains a fully stocked general store setting and a rural post office from Arthur, Tennessee (near Harrogate). Tools on display include an axe that may have been used at colonial Fort Loudoun, the shoeing box fished out of the Clinch in the wake of the Big Barren Creek Flood, and thousands of other tools related to all aspects of rural life in pioneer and early 20th century Appalachia. The collection includes photographs and short descriptions that detail each item's original owner and usage.

The Arnwine Cabin was built using hewn poplar logs between 1795 and 1820, and its first known occupant was John Wesley Arnwine. The cabin was originally located along the Clinch River near the Liberty Hill community in Grainger County. In the early 1930s, the Tennessee Valley Authority acquired the cabin's tract for the construction of Norris Lake, and the cabin was moved a short distance. Two of Arnwine's daughters, Polly Anne (d. 1923) and Eliza Jane (d. 1936) lived in the cabin their entire lives, and after Eliza Jane's death the cabin was used for storage and fell into ruin. John Rice Irwin acquired the cabin in 1964 and moved it to the present museum site. Irwin decided the roof could not be salvaged, so he and two associates split 5,400 shingles from a single red oak tree and built the present roof. The cabin's floor was also missing, so Irwin located a contemporary puncheon floor at a smokehouse near Sneedville and moved it to the Arnwine Cabin. The stone part of the cabin's chimney was moved from the ruins of a contemporary house in the Laurel Grove community just north of the museum, and a stick and mud section was added. Over several years, the cabin was outfitted with authentic furniture, tools, and utensils from the region's pioneer period.