Today, we visited the Mississippi Agriculture Museum. This is a 39 acre indoor and outdoor museum. According to their website, "In 1969, Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Jim Buck Ross, recognizing a need for the preservation of our culture and heritage in a tangible way, began collecting artifacts, organizing scholars, and laying a ground work for a museum. In 1978, the City of Jackson donated a valuable 39 acre site on Lakeland Drive and Interstate 55. It consists of permanent exhibits, a living history farm, an entire crossroads town, and a forest study area."
Even for a Saturday afternoon, we practically had the place to ourselves, seeing less than 10 people total. It was really relaxing and nice to walk around and explore Mississippi's history in agriculture. We started in the main indoor building, Heritage Center, where we learned about Choctaw agriculture, forest conservation, and how agriculture in the area changed/evolved when cars. railroad, and aviation were introduced. This state has a rich history with cotton, and the Heritage center had all types of cotton gin machines and tools to see. In the middle of the Heritage Center was a massive miniature model exhibit complete with railroads and moving railcars, tiny model houses, people, animals, and a scavenger hunt to find objects in it. It was pretty cool, they even had bees in the exhibit.
Outside, we walked around Small Town, Mississippi buildings with collected artifacts to showcase what it likely looked like in the 1920s. We shopped for candy and sodas in the general store, walked through the doctor's office and medical herb garden (our favorite), admired the animals in the children's barnyard, saw all the antique tractors in the exhibit barn, and walked through the Fortenberry-Parkman farmstead.
These days, Drew and I don't do as much traveling around and exploring like we did in Colorado, so it was great to get out and visit this unique museum. We will definitely be back because we didn't even see everything there.
