Westville will make its move in coming year
Historic Westville has been an important part of our cultural and historic heritage since its founding almost a half-century ago. Countless preservation organizations, civil groups, families and school classes have toured its historical structures and examined its well-preserved artifacts, and it has provided entertainment and education to thousands.
Its biggest challenge, as has been the case with other valuable assets and amenities in the greater west Georgia-east Alabama area, has been geography.
To say it's off the beaten path is an understatement (and yes, a cliché). Westville isn't really on the way to anything, unless you're south of it and on the way to Columbus. As fuel prices have risen, Historic Westville has seen visits drop off over the years; it's not a destination for historic or environmental tourism that can be 'bundled' with other attractions.
That disadvantage is about to change.
Two years ago, the city of Columbus agreed to provide 47 acres for Westville to relocate to an area near the National Infantry Museum and the Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center. The "living history" museum of 1850s rural life will soon be part of a tourism area that includes two of the most popular and respected destinations around.
The organization has topped $5 million of the $7 million it needed to raise in order to complete the move, a success Mayor Teresa Tomlinson called "a tribute to the strong legacy of Westville." And there will be more to come: Westville Executive Director Leo Goodsell announced that "we have received a tremendous $2.5 million challenge grant from an anonymous donor that will be awarded once we meet our campaign goal."
That "bonus" funding will allow the relocated historic village to incorporate even more 19th century attractions and artifacts into the site, including an area dedicated to the Creek Indians indigenous to this region, and a reconstructed frontier settlement.
Even without the new attractions, this is not a quick or easy undertaking. Relocation of the existing historic village involves the moving -- in many cases, no doubt, the careful and expert disassembly and subsequent reassembly -- of 30 historic buildings and more than 5,000 artifacts from Lumpkin to Columbus. The delicacy of the process is almost certainly one of the reasons Columbus granted Westville a year-long extension on its timetable to get the painstaking job done.
That job -- the physical part of it, anyway -- won't begin until after Christmas. Westville will stay open at its Lumpkin site through Dec. 26. Even after it packs up for the move to Columbus, which should be completed in 2016, it will still be providing educational programs and events. Its Facebook page and website will still be up and running.
Sometime within the coming year, so will an expanded and improved Westville. The historic village isn't going away; it will just be closer to home for more of us.
This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 6:32 PM with the headline "Westville will make its move in coming year."