LIFE LIST UPDATE – No. 821: Visit the Clarke County Historical Museum in Grove Hill

Grove Hill's Alston-Cobb House

One of the best hometown museums in all of Alabama is the Clarke County Historical Museum in Grove Hill, the county seat of Clarke County, Ala. I’ve driven by this museum dozens of times but had never stopped to visit because I was always on my way somewhere else. I placed a trip to this museum on my “life list” a couple of years ago, and scratched it off my list on Saturday morning when my son and I paid a visit to the museum.

The Clarke County Historical Museum is located in the historic Alston-Cobb House at 116 West Cobb St. in Grove Hill. Built by Dr. Lemuel Lovett Alston in 1854, the two-story house served as a private residence until the Clarke County Historical Society bought it in 1980. The house opened as a local history museum in 1984.

The first floor of the house consists of four large rooms that contain a wide variety of historical displays and artifacts, including dinosaur bones, prehistoric shark teeth, old arrowheads, pottery shards, the largest block of pure salt I’ve ever seen, historical models, an old bullwhip, fiddle, historic newspapers and letters, military uniforms, a large topographic map of Clarke County, a piece of parachute from WWII’s D-Day and a wide variety of historic rifles, shotguns and handguns. The first floor also features the museum’s bookstore, which contains scores of books about local history.

The second floor of the house consists of two rooms that are equally impressive. One room contains dozens of military artifacts, including old uniforms, flags, weapons, firearms and pieces of the Berlin Wall. The other second floor room is decorated like an old-fashioned bedroom, complete with large bed, old sewing machines, a cuckoo clock, a gentleman’s top hat and old dresses.

The house also includes an antebellum kitchen that’s separated from the main house by a long, covered porch. The kitchen features a large fireplace for cooking and all sorts of old-timey cooking implements. My son seemed to be most impressed by an old, wooden rolling pin, something that he’d apparently never laid eyes on before.

The Alston-Cobb House sits on a sizeable piece of property in downtown Grove Hill, and a stroll around the grounds will allow you to see a number of other historical items and displays. You’ll see markers memorializing the county’s World War I dead and Revolutionary War veterans. There’s also an old outhouse, a corncrib and the fully restored Matthews Cabin. Also, next door to the museum, is the local Chamber of Commerce’s office, which is located in the old Creagh Law Office building, a building that dates back to 1834.

During our visit on Saturday morning, museum worker Marie Smith was on hand to show me and my son around. She was great. Not only did she give us a warm welcome, but she was also extremely helpful and filled us in on everything the museum had to offer. She offered to answer any questions we had about anything in the museum and also recommended that we visit the site of Old Fort Sinquefield, which we did on our way home.

In the end, how many of you have ever been to the Clarke County Historical Museum in Grove Hill? What did you think about it? Do you know of any other great hometown museums in Alabama? Which would you recommend and why? Let us know in the comments section below.

(For more information about the Clarke County Historical Museum, visit its Web site at www.clarkemuseum.com.)