Museum History

In 1972, after a court battle, the state of Georgia won the locomotive the General back from the state of Tennessee. The General was taken to the Big Shanty Museum in Kennesaw, Georgia, located in the old Frey cotton gin, just yards from where it had been stolen 110 years earlier. The Big Shanty Museum, later called the Kennesaw Civil War Museum, showcased the General and the Civil War’s Great Locomotive Chase with artifacts and a multimedia presentation.

In the mid-1990s, the city of Kennesaw acquired the Glover Steam Locomotive Collection and planned to build a new, separate museum to house it. Originally, up to a million dollars of public funding was earmarked for the project. In 1998, the Kennesaw Museum Foundation was formed to identify other sources of funding, and the city decided to combine the Glover Collection with the General.

In 2000, the project was expanded once more to include a library, archives, and storage in addition to the exhibit space. The newly renovated Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History houses three permanent collections plus space for revolving exhibits.

The Museum became a member of the prestigious Smithsonian Affiliations program in October 2001 after a lengthy application process that included visits to Washington, DC. The affiliation allows the Museum to host traveling Smithsonian exhibits, book Smithsonian historians for lecture series, and feature Smithsonian artifacts within its permanent collections. The revolving exhibits program will also spur repeat visits to the Museum because something new will be on display about every three months.