With Hundreds Of Fascinating Medical Artifacts, This Small Town Museum In Georgia Is A True Hidden Gem

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.

Though the building isn't massive, there are some fascinating items on display.

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.

There's a room that has multiple anesthesia machines from throughout the years so you can see first-hand how much the science has changed.

There's also a recreation of an old-time general store where you can see products that would have been used in the 19th century.

Many of the artifacts here are from the local area, giving you a look at what Jackson County was like in centuries past.

For more information about the Crawford W. Long Museum in Jefferson, GA, check out the museum's website or Facebook page.