November 2010

The museum strives to reach more and more citizens with local history programs and introduce them to the museum as a cultural resource. Educational programs, tours, workshops and family events are offered for all ages throughout the year. The museum features a permanent exhibit on the history of Aurora and two changing exhibit galleries.

The museum has educational displays featuring artifacts, photographs, antiques and collectibles portraying early ranch and farm life. It features exhibits of Indian artifacts, Hispanic settlers, the Japanese-American community, Adams State College, Military regalia and early railroading.

The Bellamy Mansion is one of North Carolina's most spectacular examples of antebellum architecture built on the eve of the Civil War by free and enslaved black artisans, for John Dillard Bellamy (1817-1896) physician, planter and business leader; and his wife, Eliza McIlhenny Harriss (1821-1907) and their nine children. After the fall of Fort Fisher in 1865, Federal troops commandeered the house as their headquarters during the occupation of Wilmington. Now the house is a museum that focuses on history and the design arts and offers tours, changing exhibitions and an informative look at historic preservation in action.

Take a walk on the wild side in lawyer/gunfighter Temple Houston's hometown museum. Frontier-town vignettes feature Houston's office, a bank, saloon, jail, photo studio, and newspaper office. Native American exhibits feature the Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Founded in 1955, the museum in Oklahoma City collects, preserves and exhibits an internationally renowned collection of Western art and artifacts while sponsoring dynamic educational programs and ground-breaking scholarly research to stimulate interest in the enduring legacy of our American West.

The plantation house, now surrounded by an urban setting, was once the center of a 900-acre operation with frontage on the Mississippi River. The main house was built around 1791 as a small settler's house and as prosperity came to the lower Mississippi Valley, the house was enlarged and renovated in 1802-05, to become the elegant seat of a major landowner. Spanning the colonial era and early statehood, Magnolia Mound's collection of furnishings and decorative arts include one of the foremost public groups of Louisiana- made objects, in carefully restored and documented settings. The object collection includes locally made furniture from Louisiana's colonial period, as well as French pieces that illustrate the ties of the sophisticated planter with his family in France. Inventory records and accounts from the period indicate that prosperous local planters purchased fashionable Federal-style objects from the eastern seaboard. Decorative art items also include English and French ceramics, crystal and furniture obtained through the major port of New Orleans and locally made textiles.

At this museum, there are currently four exhibits on display: The History of Cotton, The Impact of Cotton on Westward Expansion, and The Impact of Cotton on Society and Culture and The Impact of Cotton on the Economy. The last exhibit is subdivided into Technological Advances, The New Orleans Cotton Exchange and The Uses of Cotton.

The Louisiana Military Museum is the newest addition to the Secretary of State's museums division. It contains a military collection unique to the area. The museum chronicles our conflicts from the Spanish American War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and today's war on terror. The most voluminous part of the collection is weapons, from swords and muskets to heavy machine guns. Artillery pieces are also displayed on the grounds. All weapons are deactivated for safety.

The human story, however, is the best told through diaries, Bibles, medals, and kits of personal items. A young man donated his father's flight jacket; it was the only item that was returned when the pilot was reported lost in Vietnam. The enemy's human dimension is also evident, for example, through a German mother's medal awarded to her for bearing many sons for the fatherland.

The home and gardens was born of the dreams of Edgar and Edith Stern, pillars of the New Orleans community. It is the combination of the Sterns working with landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman and architects William and Geoffrey Platt that has created this wonderful oasis of beauty set in charming New Orleans. The Longue Vue House is one of the last great houses to be custom-built in America, taking the Platt brothers three years (1939-1942) to create.

This Classical Revival style house consists of three stories and a basement, an unusual feature of New Orleans where most of the city is below sea level. Visitors tour the main living spaces of the house, numbering 20 rooms. The house contains its original furnishings of English and American antiques; European and Eastern European carpets; Modern and Contemporary art; collections of needlework, chintz, haute couture and ethnic costumes; Chinese and European export porcelain; Saffordshire transferware; and creamware and pearlware from Wedgwood, Leeds and other British and continental potteries.