Museum of Southern History

About us

In the late 1970s, museum benefactor Joella Morris cast about for some means to help preserve the history of Ft. Bend County by working to save the old jail in Richmond, Texas. That accomplished, she set her sights upon preserving artifacts and memorabilia on The War Between the States, and established a museum in which to display these materials. A 1978 Corporate agreement evolved into The Confederate Museum, which had its own building just outside Richmond, until 1997 that is, when it was relocated into a new building on the campus of Southern National Bank in Sugar Land, Texas. In this suburban community on the outskirts of Houston, the museum operated to entertain and educate patrons, continuing to acquire and display objects relating primarily to nineteenth century subjects. Now a new home has been constructed to house the museum's growing collections and increasing number of visitors.

Throughout 2001-2, an impressive building patterned after Thomas Jefferson's retreat of Poplar Forest, went up, and during the summer of '02, the museum began to move into its new premises. The two story brick structure was not only modeled after Jefferson's home, but impressively landscaped and a small sharecropper's home was situated on a nearby tract.

The permanent exhibits on the upper floor chronicle the antebellum history of the south, the coming of an Un-Civil War, the tragic events that composed that drama, and the effects upon generations of southern society. Visitors peruse cases and dioramas, viewing clothing, fine furnishings, uniforms, tools, and weapons that help convey a sense of who settled the region and how they altered their world to make it a prosperous area, and developed their unique social values.