Alabama Veterans Museum & Archives reopens in former event center

The reopening comes about a year and a half after the museum’s board received the deed for the Limestone County Event Center and renovated its northern half for exhibits.

The new museum space will enable the facility to “honor our veterans and heroes and those who made the ultimate sacrifice for your freedom,” said director Sandy Thompson. ”It gives us more room to honor more heroes.”

A ceremony to mark the reopening will begin at 2:30 p.m. today, with Gov. Kay Ivey scheduled to cut the ribbon to the new location on Pryor Street in Athens. The renovated building is across the parking lot from the space the museum had used since 2002 in a century-old former L&N freight depot.

The museum features military memorabilia and artifacts — uniforms, medals, photographs and weapons — from the Revolutionary War to the present day, and guided tours are given by local veterans. Thompson said the Revolutionary War display will grow from one case to a full exhibit. There will be a library for the museum’s collection of military books, and two virtual reality stations with headsets featuring local veterans.

The amount of display space will double to about 8,000 square feet of the 10,000-square-foot museum, Thompson said.

Longtime museum board member Fred Martin Jr., who’s an Army veteran, has checked on the construction project as it progressed.

“We’re now able to display items we didn’t before because we didn’t have room,” Martin said. “We’re fortunate that the County Commission deeded the property to us so we could use it.”

“I knew they would do great things” with the building, said Limestone County Commission Chairman Collin Daly. “It’s amazing what they’ve done. It’s better than we expected.”

There’s also 10,000 square feet of event space on the south end of the building, with a stage and kitchen. That area, which has already been rented for wedding receptions and after-rehearsal dinners, will seat 400 people and accommodate 300 for a seated dinner.

“We can still use it for special exhibits,” Thompson said.

The event and museum space is separated by a wall, with a series of windows installed in it. “You can see from the event venue into the museum,” Thompson said. There’s also plenty of room to host monthly coffee calls.

Thompson said the project has cost more than $900,000, including architecture and design fees and constructions costs.

The museum board had leased the former depot building from Limestone County, also the owner of the event center facility. The County Commission in late 2019 agreed to transfer the deed of the building to the museum board, which will now manage both the museum and event operations. The building will revert to the county if it’s no longer used as a museum.