Visitors Give New Life to City’s Museum

The News & Advance
Published: July 9, 2008

History has always been an important part of Lynchburg. The city’s founding on the banks of the James River more than 225 years ago has been well documented. And details of the city’s progress from a hamlet on the river to a thriving population center have been recorded for future generations.

One of the repositories — if not the main repository — of those details is the old City Court House, now known as the Lynchburg Museum and home of the city’s museum system.

The museum stands at the top of Monument Terrace on Court Street and remains the best example of Greek Revival architecture in the city. It was built in 1853-55.

It is fitting that the old court house was built on a parcel of land donated to the city by John Lynch in 1805. Lynch, of course, is the legendary father of the city whose ferry established the town as a trading hub in the late 1700s.

For the past several years, the museum building has undergone a thorough restoration not only to preserve it, but also to make it more presentable as a destination for tourists and residents alike. The success of that restoration was documented recently when museum officials revealed that the number of visitors has more than tripled in the past year.

The grand reopening was in February and as of the end of last month nearly 4,500 people have ventured inside to see the museum’s new exhibits and displays.

The museum system, which includes Point of Honor on Cabell Street, releases a visitor count at the end of each fiscal year.

Traffic at Point of Honor, built in 1815 and probably Lynchburg’s best-known house, jumped by about 11.5 percent during the past fiscal year. That was an increase of about 600 over the 5,400 who visited it in the previous year. Point of Honor was sold to the city in 1928 and now serves as a historic house illustrating the life and times of an early 19th century Lynchburg family.

The Lynchburg Museum also has a potential regional role to play, as the hub of a plethora of historical attractions in Central Virginia: the Civil War surrender grounds in Appomattox and the future branch of the Museum of the Confederacy, the Old City Cemetery, Historic Sandusky, local museums in Rustburg and Amherst, Avoca Museum in Altavista, the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford and the city/county museum there and, last but certainly not least, Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest.

Lynchburg, literally, is at the center of the Central Virginia region; it’s been the economic and historical center since the city itself was founded. As history tourism grows, Central Virginia is poised to leap on the bandwagon. It just takes a little bit of vision and planning to build on what this area already has in abundance.

Doug Harvey, director of the museum, said one “heartwarming” trend in the visitor figures was the high number of out-of-state and sometimes out-of-country tourists who stopped by. In June alone, he said, the museum welcomed visitors from 22 states other than Virginia and from three foreign countries, including Colombia and Japan.

Thanks to a gift from the estate of Lynchburg educator Edith B. Lee, the museum has been able to put new items on display and add murals and graphics to an upper gallery devoted to children’s education.

“We’re seeing an increase in our visitors, and working hard to deliver service to the community,” Harvey said. “There’s life on Court Street.”

And that life revolves around the past that the museum officials are working hard to keep alive and relevant as the city heads toward the future. The rising number of visitors to the museum clearly affirms its importance to the city and its people.