Plan A Visit

The Museum is open from 10am - 5pm Tuesday through Saturday






Changing Exhibits

Beyond Human Limits

Through April 28, 2025





Upcoming Events

Fri May 02, 2025 @ 8:00pm - 09:30pm
Historic Downtown Mount Airy Ghost Tours
Fri May 02, 2025 @ 8:00pm - 09:00pm
Historic Pilot Mountain Ghost Tours
Sat May 03, 2025 @ 8:00pm - 09:00pm
Historic Mount Airy Ghost Trolley Tour

Who We Are

 

Mount Airy Museum of Regional History

IMG_8201_-_Copy_606x640 Ours is an all American story - typical of how communities grew up all across our great nation. While our story takes place in the back country of northwestern North Carolina at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it is likely to bear many similarities to the development of crossroads, towns, and cities throughout America.

It had taken little more than 100 years for the corridors along the coastline of this still-new continent to overflow. As tensions grew and conflicts flared, the pioneer spirit set in. Families literally packed up everything they owned and headed into the unknown-searching for the "promised land."

Mission Statement:

The Purpose of the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is to  Collect, Preserve and Interpret the Natural, Historic, and Artistic Heritage of the Region

                                                                      Adopted by the Board of Directors   October 9, 1995


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Mount Airy Museum Of Regional History

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

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As a result of a $5,000 grant received last year from Bay and Paul Foundation, the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is embarking on a mission to better preserve and archive its extensive collections, which includes around 20,000 objects and 10,000 photographs.

The grant was intended for “collections management, digitization and archival supplies and equipment,” according to Matthew Edwards, executive director of the museum.

Museum volunteers gathered Tuesday afternoon for a training session to teach them how to repackage, document and digitize a large part of the museum’s collections.

Adrienne Berney, collections care trainer with the Connecting to Collections project, led the volunteers in a series of training activities, including an examination of multiple training objects in order to properly train them to archive materials and know the techniques needed to examine and document each object.

“Our goal is to help small museums and this grant helps us to go out in the state, to museums like this one, and host regional workshops to reform and revise the archives as well as learn object handling techniques. Some volunteers will work with objects and others will work primarily with the digitization of the archives,” Berney explained to the volunteers.

Read more: Mount Airy News - Behind the scenes at the museum

Museum's Luthier Craft Exhibit Opens Saturday

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This Saturday, The Mount Airy Museum of Regional History premieres its newest traveling exhibit, The Luthier’s Craft: Instrument Making Traditions of the Blue Ridge.

The exhibit explores the luthier’s craft of making stringed instruments and will include sections on banjo, guitar, and fiddle creation in the southern Appalachia and Blue Ridge Mountain areas, as well as biographical information on the luthiers.

The exhibit includes a number of hands-on activities, audio/visual, and interactive components. Admission to the museum is free this Saturday, but donations are encouraged.

Three luthiers are featured, including Johnny Gentry from the Mountain Park area, who crafts banjos; Wayne Henderson, a guitar-maker from the Mouth of Wilson area in Virginia; and a pair of old-time fiddler makers, Chris Testerman and Audrey Hash Ham.

Read more: Mount Airy News - Museum’s Luthier’s Craft exhibit opens Saturday

Saturday History Talk focusing on Siamese twins, Civil War

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On Saturday the History Talks lecture series continues at the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History with a free presentation about Eng and Chang Bunker, the famous Siamese Twins, and how their families were affected by The Civil War.

Tom Perry, local author of more than 30 books and a regional historian, will present the lecture at 2 p.m. on the third floor of the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History. The event is free and no advance registration is required.

The focus of Saturday’s presentation is Eng and Chang Bunker’s family and how they were affected by The Civil War, including Christopher and Steven, the sons of the Bunkers who enlisted to fight in the war in Virginia. Both sons were in the 37th Virginia Calvary Battalion.

Stoneman’s Raid came through Surry County in April of 1865, and Perry said he wants to address the “many stories and myths” about some of the men in the raid who visited the Siamese Twins.



Read more: Mount Airy News - Saturday History Talk focusing on Siamese twins Civil War

Dipping It Old School

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With spring in the air, Easter can be just around the corner, and the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is once again planning to offer a favorite of the season — the Batik Easter Egg decorating workshop.

This year, the workshop will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. on the second-floor classroom at the museum. Two workshops are being offered this year, on March 2 and March 23.

The classes will be led by Ukraine native and museum volunteer Maria Skaskiw, who is returning for another year after teaching the class last year.

Participants will learn the ancient Ukrainian method of decorating Easter eggs using simple, primitive tools to “write” intricate designs in beeswax. This method is traditionally used to make the much-admired European-style Easter eggs.

The process involves using beeswax to cover the egg before carving designs in the wax and dying it different colors.

It is a technique that has been used for centuries.

Read more: Mount Airy News - Dipping it old school

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