Westville is a living history museum recreating an 1850 west Georgia town in Lumpkin, Georgia, United States.It is a living history museum village with over 30 authentically restored and furnished antebellum buildings and 82 acres of land that include the village, pasture, and fields.
The buildings were moved onto the museum site to create an authentic village environment. Westville preserves, demonstrates, and interprets the life and culture of pre-1860 west Georgia. This is accomplished by maintaining an authentic village environment, collecting and preserving artifacts, demonstrating traditional work skills, and providing tours, workshops, and special events. For special events, "Townspeople" in period dress demonstrate woodworking, baking, pottery turning, blacksmithing, and other skills from the mid-19th century. Buildings include a court house, church, school, stores, craft shops, residences, and cotton plantation buildings.
The history of Westville is forever connected to Lt. Col. John Word West born in 1876 at a critical time of change in Georgia. A high school and college teacher, West committed himself and his own money in 1928 to saving “Georgiana”---the buildings, tools, furniture, and work skills of Georgia’s settlement. He admired the work of two other Americans who also took history into their own hands: Rockefeller and Ford. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (Standard Oil Company family) had started Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia in 1927. Henry Ford (the automobile maker) had started Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan in 1928. West engaged both men and even traded artifacts with Ford.
