Vaughan-Smitherman Museum

The Vaughan-Smitherman Museum is a historic museum in Selma, Alabama. It features a wide array of displays chronicling the city’s local history with displays of Civil War items and documents as well as Native American artifacts. They also have a floor that shows the old Vaughan Memorial Hospital among many others.

The Vaughan-Smitherman Museum is also interesting because it is housed in a historic building. The structure was built in 1847 as the Central Masonic Institute, designed to function as a school for orphans and children of indigent Masons. It also became the Dallas County Courthouse for quite some time and then the Selma Military Institute. In 1911, it was transformed into the Vaughan Memorial Hospital until 1960. In 1971, it was reopened as the Historic and Civic Building.