Clarkesville Main Street Receives Grant for Historic Photo Display

The City of Clarkesville’s Main Street Program is working on a new display to showcase hundreds of historic photos.

Clarkesville’s Main Street office is located in the historic Mauldin House on Jefferson Street and Clarkesville Downtown Economic Development Director Mary Beth Horton said over the years, people have donated their old family and other photos of the town.

Horton says the challenge has been how to display them properly.

“The historic Mauldin House was built in 1880,” Horton said. “So right now we have all of these hundreds of photos that have been donated or were found in files, but because the house is so old, the humidity in the house is just not the right climate to display them. So, what we want to do is enhance the visitors’ experience. We want to upgrade the (photo) display that we have here and make them more user friendly as well as tell the story of Clarkesville from its beginnings in the 1800’s.”

Horton said a team of representatives from the State visited Clarkesville last year and came up with a number of ideas to help the City promote tourism.

“So they came to the Mauldin House and they said, ‘you have this great house here, you have these photos and plethera of information but it’s displayed in such a non-professional way that we feel like you could apply for this grant. You could then display these photos in the way they were meant to be displayed,’” Horton recalled.

Clarkesville Main Street then applied for and was awarded a grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Economic Development to design and build a museum quality photo display.

Clarkesville Main Street is now working with Piedmont College to bring the history of Clarkesville to life with the historic photos.

“Part of the grant included incorporating students, specifically from the history department, who could come in, organize these photos, do some research on them. So, it’s going to tell the story of Clarkesville through the decades; from the time it received its charter in the 1823 to today,” she said.

Horton said they hope to have the new historic photo display ready for public viewing at the Mauldin House in time for Clarkesville’s Mountain Laurel Festival in May, which is also National Historic Preservation Month.