With Hundreds Of Fascinating Medical Artifacts, This Small Town Museum In Georgia Is A True Hidden Gem
By Lisa Sammons|Published June 01, 2023
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Lisa Sammons
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Lisa loves animals and has dogs, rats, cats, guinea pigs, and snakes. She is passionate about animal rescue, particularly fixing stray cats. She also likes reading, playing Pokemon Go, and watching movies. Her dog Cece is the best dog in the whole world. You can reach Lisa at lsammons@onlyinyourstate.com
If you’re a fan of museums in Georgia, you have plenty of options in our larger towns. There are so many great historic homes in Savannah that have been converted into museums, and, of course, Atlanta is home to a number of great art and history museums. Our small town museums tend to not get as much love, but we have some pretty amazing ones that are definitely worth a visit. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Crawford W. Long Museum in the town of Jefferson and was amazed at how interesting it was! If you have any interest at all in medicine or just want to learn more about local history, I highly recommend visiting this little hidden gem.
The town of Jefferson has a population of around 13,000. It's the county seat of Jackson County and has quite a bit of history. You'll find the Crawford W. Long Museum right on the town's historic square.
While the museum is relatively small, and doesn't have much signage on the outside, inside there were tons of things to see. I actually ended up spending about two hours looking through all the exhibits here.
The museum's pieces focus on the history of anesthesia and the life of Crawford W. Long, the Georgia-born inventor of anesthesia. However, there's also some wonderful exhibits about medicine in general.
It's so interesting to see how much things have changed over the years! You'll find all kinds of things that are shocking to modern day visitors, like labor and delivery bills of under $50, cocaine-laced pain medicines, and more.
