Sarah Irwin, or “Granny Irwin,” was one of two girls in a family with eleven children. Her sister, who was much older, married and left [...]

The peaceful little village of Old Loyston, Tennessee was located less than 10 miles from where the Museum now stands, and it was often said [...]

Pictured here is the sweater that Granny Toothman knitted from the spring shedding of her Samoyed dog. The dog is named after the Samoyedic people [...]

James Bunch of Madisonville, Tennessee used his pocketknife to create this wooden motorcycle. Every piece of the motorcycle is made of scrap wood—right down to the [...]

The twisted piece of wood on the right was once as straight as an arrow—just as straight as the piece shown on the left. Harve [...]

Around 1978, Museum founder John Rice Irwin purchased this pie safe from Ethel Freytag. Ethel was a historian and retired school teacher who lived on [...]

Most of the early ballot boxes in Southern Appalachia were created out of make-shift wood or cardboard, so we were most surprised to discover this heavily fortified [...]

Nancy Rose, a talented “old-time” basket-maker, made several of these peculiar, unusually-shallow baskets. However, she came up with the design for the original “stomped-on” basket by accident. [...]

This unfinished stone carving was created by George Price, a resident of White County, Tennessee. It is our understanding that George had no training as [...]