Southwest Virginia Museum

Southwest Virginia Museum is a Virginia historical marker in in Big Stone Gap, Wise County, dedicated 2000.

Wise County · dedicated 2000 · Alternate Rte. 58 alongside Southwest Virginia Museum, in Big Stone Gap

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This museum is located in a mansion built by lawyer and industrialist Rufus Ayers, Virginia attorney general in the 1880s. Janie Slemp Newman and her brother, C. Bascom Slemp, a former U.S. congressman and private secretary to President Calvin Coolidge, assembled the initial collection of artifacts on display. Slemp bequeathed the collection to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1946 and the Southwest Virginia Museum opened to the public in 1948. The museum chronicles the development of Southwest Virginia and presents a picture of life in the past.

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Marker program managed by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

More markers nearby

Carl Martin--Early Musical Pioneerunder 1 mi
Big Stone Gapunder 1 mi
James A. Bland High Schoolunder 1 mi
Origins of Big Stone Gapunder 1 mi

On the National Register nearby

Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park150 ft

Places within about 300 feet of this marker that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A nearby listing is not always the marker's own subject.