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Athaneum will open to public tomorrow

By From staff reports
Published: June 12, 2009

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A rare opportunity to view one of Eufaula’s most outstanding assets is available to the public this Saturday in conjunction with the Jefferson Davis Celebration honouring Davis’ birthday and Kolb’s Battery of Eufaula and Barbour County.

A tour of the Athenaeum will take place at 10 a.m. Thirty people can be accommodated. A special Jefferson Davis collection will be on display for this event. Rare Confederate government imprints are also expected to be on display.

The Athenaeum has what may be the largest collection of “Civil War” photographs in private hands in the U.S. as well as a large number of Confederate government imprints. Emphases of the collection are on “Civil War” and Southern history, Southern fiction, State and local history and U. S. presidents.

A collection of this size (30,000 volumes) and high quality (for example, mostly first edition books, many signed) is normally found in a much larger place than Eufaula.

The best selling author, Donnie Kennedy of Louisiana, author of “The South Was Right,” “Was Jefferson Davis Right?,” and four other books, will speak at the l p.m. program at the gazebo in the Fairview Arboretum adjacent to Fairview Cemetery on North Randolph Avenue, following a barbecue at noon. Festivities will begin at 11 a.m.

Proceeds will go to the Alabama Allatoona Pass Monument Project. Kolb’s Battery of Eufaula and Barbour County was the only Alabama unit at the Battle of Allatoona Pass, fought in October of 1864. For advance tickets, please call D. W. Hicks at 334-687-8369 or Ellen Green at 334-687-2483.