Message from the Director

Welcome to the Appalachian Cultural Museum's electronic museum. Here you will be able to tour the Museum's permanent exhibit, "Time and Change: Centuries of Living in the Blue Ridge Mountains," as well as visit some of our current and recent temporary shows. The museum is very involved in developing gardens featuring native plants, and you will be able to follow the seasonal changes of the garden on the website. Additionally, we offer many programs throughout the year, which are listed on this site, and we also offer a variety of programs for elementary and secondary schools as well as adult group group tours.

Hopefully, we will meet many of you in person at the museum, which has been open to the public since 1989. Its mission is to provide a continuing reinterpretation of life and culture in the mountains of western North Carolina. Some of you will know the people of this area only as stereotypes offered up in the popular culture --- the Beverly Hillbillies, Snuffy Smith, and the dangerous characters from Deliverance.

The Museum offers a more realistic depiction of mountain people; it's useful to understand that Thomas Jefferson was a mountain man long before anyone ever thought of Jed Clampett, and a better one, too.

So, on behalf of Appalachian State University, let me welcome you once again to the Appalachian Cultural Museum.

Charles A. Watkins, Ph.D, Director