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Meigs County Historical Museum

history museum in Tennessee, United States

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ17021305 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Meigs County Historical Museum is located on Smith Avenue in Decatur, Tennessee and is owned and operated by the Meigs County Historical Society. The groundbreaking for this new site was in July 2002. The museum houses many county court and family records. On permanent display is a mural depicting Main Street in Decatur in the 1930s. The mural was funded by grants from the Tennessee Arts Commission and the VEC Customershares program, and painted by Bill McDonald, a local artist.

Quilt

In 1985, the Meigs County Family and Community Education ("FCE") Club began a large quilt to commemorate the early history of Meigs County, for a state project, the Tennessee "Homecoming 1986." The quilt includes images of fourteen sites representing the early history of Meigs County. The central quilt design, including a map of the area to locate the various sites represented, was created by Flossie Bennett, a longtime leader of the FCE. A committee of representatives from Ten Mile, Peakland, Concord, Goodfield, and Decatur, decided which sites would be included in the quilt. The sites chosen were the Elisha Sharp House (also known as the Sharp-Wasson-Worth House, c. 1825), the Stewart House (1830), the R.H. Johnson Stable, the Mount Zion church and Cemetery (1830), Zeigler's Mill (1850, previously 'Gettys Mill'), the Washington Ferry (1808), the Pisah Church (1818), the old gymnasium (c. 1822), the old Meigs County Courthouse (1904), the old Volunteer Electric Cooperative Building (1935), the Ashley House (1885), and the Sam Eaves Store (c.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Meigs County Historical Museum” is history museum in Tennessee, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Meigs, County and Historical, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2002, 1985, 1986, 1825—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Meigs, County and Historical is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “history museum in Tennessee, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17021305. Authority coordinates are 35.516, -84.789. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002, 1985, 1986 and 1825.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Meigs County Historical Museum”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Meigs County Historical Museum primary sources, Meigs County Historical Museum archive and Meigs research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Meigs County Historical Museum”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Meigs County Historical Museum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.