Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Historic Westville Village - TPR's In Focus - Sept. 15, 2026

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Historic Westville Village - TPR's In Focus - Sept. 15, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Janice Hawkins Cultural Arts Park on
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  the main campus of Troy University, featuring the International
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  Arts Center, the Fred Nall Hollis Museum,
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  and the Huabaozhou Gallery. More information at troy.edu/artspark.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus,
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  and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. Historic Westville Village
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  in Columbus, Georgia is a community where visitors
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  can experience life as it was in the 1800s.
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  April Kirk is executive director, and she joins us
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  today to share what makes Westville Village a
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  unique destination. April,
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  thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.
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  Where is Westville Village located?
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  Historic Westville Village is located in Columbus, Georgia, right along
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  the Chattahoochee River. We're in the southernmost point of Columbus,
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  outside the entrance to Fort Benning, where previously we were
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  in Stewart County in Lumpkin. You yourself are a well-known artist.
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  Are you trying to bring the arts more to the forefront?
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  Absolutely. One of the great things about Westville
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  and the story we tell is about the craftspeople and the
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  trades. And so, we are really trying to preserve those things
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  and bring more crafting and fine arts
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  into what we're doing at Westville now. April, what's the story
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  behind Westville Village's name?
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  Historic Westville Village is actually named in honor of
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  Colonel John Ward West, who is the unofficial
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  founder of Westville today.
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  Born shortly after the end of the Civil
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  War, he grew up learning traditional trades and crafts
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  from his grandparents, and he really set out
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  to preserve this history and these skills, and he called
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  it Saving Georgiana. And Colonel West
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  created what was known as the Fair of 1850, and he acquired
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  houses from Georgia to preserve them, and people would come and learn
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  how to loom, how to rifle a gun, how to
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  fall a tree. And the Fair of 1850 grew
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  so much that it was known as the Dixie Smithsonian. And then
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  after he passed away, it was people in Columbus
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  that really wanted to preserve that legacy.
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  Who inspired him to create this village? He was
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  inspired by Rockefeller and Henry Ford, and in
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  fact reached out to both of them to find out how they created their own
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  living history experiences. You know, everyone knows Colonial Williamsburg,
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  and he reached out to them to get advice. His goal was
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  actually for the state to acquire the Fair of
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  1850 as part of the state park
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  system and historic site, and he wasn't successful in that,
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  but because of what he created, which later
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  was incorporated into Historic Westville, it is still known as the
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  3rd oldest living history experience in the
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  United States behind Colonial Williamsburg and Dearborn.
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  Give us the location so that your listeners can arrange
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  a visit. Absolutely. We are located at 3557
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  South Lumpkin Road in Columbus. We are
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  adjacent to the National Infantry Museum and
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  Oxbow Meadows Environmental Center, so it makes a wonderful trip
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  for people to experience a lot of history, culture,
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  and nature all in one area. Give us
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  an overview of what your visitors can find today.
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  Historic Westville Village, located in Columbus, has 17
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  historic structures. We are still working on some
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  preservation, so not all of them are open yet, but it definitely gives
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  people a reason to come back and visit later.
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  When they come, they meet our team. They're historic interpreters,
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  who are very passionate about their craft. Some are skilled
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  tradespeople and some are apprenticing.
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  They dress in period wardrobe and they share the history of their structures,
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  Colonel John West, the people that would have lived and
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  worked in these buildings, and they demonstrate these traditional
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  crafts and trades. What are some of those popular structures
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  where the interpreters are? Well, everyone loves
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  a blacksmith. It embodies the sights,
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  sounds, smells of a working
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  living history town. Next to our blacksmith, we have
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  so many other wonderful structures that tell
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  great history. We have a wood shop, a boot shop, a quilt shop,
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  a general store. We even have a doctor's office,
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  and we have a couple homes and even 2 churches.
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  So literally you're stepping back into what the mid-1800s
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  would have been like in Georgia. Yes, we are
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  set up like a village. So at the center of our town is the
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  Chattahoochee County Courthouse. Surrounding that are our shops,
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  and then on the outer edges are our churches and our homes.
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  April, as an artist, what is your vision for
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  Historic Westville Village program-wise?
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  We really want to preserve the traditional trades
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  and crafts. So as we learned in 2020
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  when the pandemic hit, people really wanted to make
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  more. They wanted to bake more. So cottagecore
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  is very much something people want to learn. So we want to teach that
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  to them. And it also helps to preserve these things and
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  we can tell the history behind them. And sometimes we
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  do them fully the traditional traditional way, and then sometimes we
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  incorporate some modern techniques into it, but we're still preserving
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  that history of how these people lived at this time,
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  and we can get creative with it. So our
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  blacksmith shop is actually credited
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  with being the birthplace of the Artists Blacksmithing
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  Association of North America. So it's not just traditional
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  blacksmiths making hooks or horseshoes. These are
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  artist blacksmithings, getting really creative, making fine works
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  of art out of steel. This is an incredible story that you're
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  telling us today. When is Westville Village open for visitors?
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  Currently, we are open Fridays and Saturdays from 10 AM
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  to 4 PM, and then as we go into the fall,
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  we're going to add more days, but we're always available for
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  special groups, tours, and even outreach programs
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  where we can go into the community and bring craft projects. How does
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  Historic Westville Village differ from other museums?
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  Sometimes when people think about museums, they think about things
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  behind glass and quieter, more stoic spaces.
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  The joy of Westville as a museum is
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  you can touch almost everything. So we don't really
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  have ropes or display cases.
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  You're walking into spaces as if people are still
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  using them, working in them, and living in them. So our museum
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  aspect is to really be inclusive and tactile
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  so people can touch and experience
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  what it was like living at this time period.
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  But also we use good museum practices to
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  make sure we're properly preserving things telling the correct stories
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  and making sure that they last for generations to come. How do you
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  include children in the Westville Village experience?
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  Definitely our school programs, which isn't just for
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  a classroom-based student but also homeschool groups
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  and even family groups. We dive a little deeper into the history
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  and really try to hit important educational points.
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  For children, it is a phenomenal place because a
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  child can touch and they can experience, so they can learn at their own pace
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  and they can really engage with the objects and the history.
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  We do a lot of craft programs for children, but we also incorporate
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  STEM, STEAM, vocabulary, literature, and all
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  other aspects of a school-based curriculum. April,
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  can you give us a website for more information? Visit us
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  at westville.org, but we also encourage
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  people to follow us on Facebook. That's always going to have
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  the most up-to-date event information, and it's Historic
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  Westville Village. Well, thank you so much for your visit today,
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  and I look forward to talking with you again in the future.
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  I would love that. Thank you so much for letting me share the story
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  of Colonel John West and Historic Westville Village.
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  That was April Kirk, Executive Director of Historic
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  Westville Village, in Columbus, Georgia.
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  Thanks for joining us today for In Focus, which is a podcast wherever
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  you get your podcasts. I'm Carolyn Hutcheson,
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  and this is listener-supported Troy Public
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  Radio.