The Overton County Museum will come alive Saturday night at the third annual Night of the Museum, where LA Honor Society Students will bring alive figures throughout the county’s history.
Director Paula Stover said the Livingston Academy Rho Kappa Social Studies Honor Society organizes the event, bringing together costumes and actors. Stover said the event helps young people connect with local history and see 200 years of Overton County history in one night.
“They don’t just read about something in a book they can find out about what happened in the area in which they live and they get excited about that,” Stover said. “And they get to thinking about their own family history and maybe what their ancestors have gone through to get to where they where we are today.”
Stover said she hopes the kids will pass on what they learn from the event to friends and family. Stover said she hopes to see more people frequent the museum after the event.
Stover said a significant part of Overton history is persevering through hardship.
“Lyda Speck, during World War II, worked on the atomic bomb, or a Red Cross nurse or a Civil War doctor as he works on the wounded near the battlefield,” Stover said. “We might see an undertaker that’ll tell about the early embalming that they did.”
Stover said Tom Davis was the first soldier killed in the Vietnam War, Becky Watson owned a well-known tavern Andrew Jackson and other figures visited, Moses Fisk surveyed all the county roads and owned thousands of acres of land.
Stover said the museum has two small rooms that pay homage to county coal mining, as the coal industry was large in Overton.
Stover said county history involves the beginning stages of the local governments. Stover said governing bodies struggled through the early stages of a newly-formed government.
“Maybe they didn’t know much about forming governments, and they held courts, sometimes the early courts were held in someone’s house. they had primitive jails. They persevered they worked out a government for a county that survived. Overton county gas been here for well over 200 years.”
Stover said admission is free, but donations are appreciated.
