November 16, 2009

The Shiloh and The Searcy House

On our little Arkansas trip, we stopped at a place that I'd wanted to visit for quite some time. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History is a truly wonderful little museum with interactive exhibits and close to a million historical images of life in the Ozarks housed in their research library.


In addition to the museum building itself, the pretty shaded grounds hold six historical buildings.




One of those buildings is the Searcy House, a home originally built in the 1870s, renovated in the 1940s, and donated, along with much of its contents, to the museum in the 1980s.




If you too are an Old Time Ozarkophile, I highly recommend a visit to The Shiloh. And lest you think this place is all butter churns and banjos, allow me to inform you that they offer podcasts on a range of fascinating topics, and that they (along with the rest of the free world) have a twitter account.



One of the very best things about the Ozarks is, of course, the music. The two cd collection of Arkansas folk music recordings culled from the Max Hunter Folk Song Collection that we bought in the gift shop has been on near constant rotation in the Hall household. I was also excited to learn today that a group of Sacred Harp singers meets there monthly. I don't think the Shiloh has seen the last of this gal.

3 comments:

Hez said...

Love the pictures! The scarecrow one is fantastic!

Heather said...

why, yes! I AM an ozarkophile! we must make a trip here sometime, it looks beautiful. I love the cabin and that photo of the banjo player....heart!
Once its warm again, I saw we load up the covered wagon, cook up some hardtack and hit the road ;)

jungle dream pagoda said...

I have not explored Arkansas quite enough....we used to go to Hot springs every New Year...but it got to be more work than fun with the girls...not enough to do with them!