Monroe County Heritage Museum

Alabama River Museum

Claiborne Lock & Dam
Franklin, Alabama

Open Saturday only
Hours:  9am to 4pm
March through October
No admission fee - donations accepted
251-282-4206

Alabama River Festival 
(Held annually the second week of March.)  

     Mar. 11-13, 2010:   Admission charged.  Alabama River Heritage Museum—Travel back in time to an early 1800’s camp on the river. Visit with Indians, Frontiersmen, Traders, and Travelers. Music, demonstrations & food, all at the only museum on the Alabama River.   School groups welcomed. 9 am to 2 pm.  $ 5 admission for adults, seniors, and children.  Call Dennis Mixon at the museum for more information 251-575-7433.   
      
     
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For Special Group tours call 251-575-7433.

     The River Museum tour begins with a collection of ancient fossils and Native American artifacts found in Monroe County, explaining the first inhabitants.  Then, view the exhibit that immortalizes the Steamboat Era, including a miniature replica of the Nettie Quill, a steamboat which traveled the Alabama River.

Directions....

     From Monroeville, take Highway 41 North and go 8 miles.  Turn left onto County Road 17.  Follow the signs to the Claiborne Lock and Dam and River Museum.  (Total mileage from Monroeville:  19 miles)

     The fossils on display are from the Gosport Sand, a layer of Southeast rocks noted for its concentration of fossils. Sir Charles Lyell, of England, father of modern Geology and friend of Charles Darwin, visited Alabama in 1846, in part to see this 60 million year old shallow-water sea floor of Eocene age. The Gosport Sand, uppermost formation of the Claiborne fossils are known and studied by geologists world-wide. Examples are found in Natural History Museums around the world, according to Dr. Doug Jones, retired Geology Professor of the University of Alabama.

     Judge Charles Tait of Claiborne, Alabama was something of an amateur geologist in the early 1800s. He recognized the significance of the exposed layer of fossils, halfway up the Claiborne Bluff, visible from the cotton slide and landing steps, which traversed the 150-foot bluff. The samples he shipped to the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences were sent all over the world when word got out that this Eocene-age layer was sloughing off whole shells in perfect condition.

     Dr. Timothy Conrad, from Philadelphia, spent almost 2 years studying and collecting at Claiborne as a house guest of the Tait's. He found many unknown species. The Gosport Sand is renowned for the great number and variety of fossils - over 150 species can be identified in it. The most rare and significant are the smallest specimens, some being microscopic. He also found important examples of these Eocene fossils in the Bell's Landing Bluff, North of Claiborne, also in Monroe County, known especially for its large turritella shells.

     The informative displays and exhibits at the River Heritage Museum showcase this world-famous Claiborne Bluff.

NATIVE AMERICANS

     The River Heritage Museum has exhibits of Monroe County Native American Life and Culture. Projectile points (commonly called arrowheads) and pottery shards are found in Monroe County every year in plowed fields and creek beds. There are hundreds of Native American sites in the area - camp sites, kill sites, and village sites. After excavation and documentation by archeologists, artifacts from the site of the present Claiborne Lock and Dam were donated by R. B. Williams, III, former owner of the land.

     The museum's collection spans thousands of years from pre-history tribes to the Creek Indians who were located in Monroe County until the Removal of 1834 by President Andrew Jackson, better known as the Trail of Tears.

     The exhibit displays tools, clothing, and weapons traditionally used by these Native Americans.