October is Heritage Month in Rutherford County. As part of the county-wide celebration, the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County has opened newly designed exhibits, highlighting artifacts from the past rarely seen before. Robert Rickman has the story.

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Among the treasures are an early 1863 print of Murfreesboro, showing the town at the time of the Battle of Stones River; a c. 1900 pennant from Soule College, the town's first all-women college that disappeared from the scene decades ago; and a 90-year-old Sanborn fire insurance map of the Murfreesboro square, that shows in detail the business that operated around the Rutherford County Courthouse during the "Roaring Twenties."

Throughout the exhibit hall are many historic postcards, from the W. Ridley Wills II collection of Rutherford County postcards. Some cards, like one of wagons full of cotton at the Murfreesboro depot, are 100 years old. Robert Rickman, WGNS news.

In addition, to the new exhibits, the Heritage Center is featuring Community Heritage Talks, every Tuesday in October. These are "brown bag" lunch events, starting at 11:30 a.m. Topics include: "Rutherford County's Historic Cemeteries" (October 7); "Mourning Dress owned by the Women of the Sam Davis Plantation" (October 14); "The Cherokee Trail of Tears in Rutherford County" (October 21); and "Murfreesboro's Historic Architecture" (October 28).

"Residents have been wonderful in supporting the Heritage Center for the last eight years," commented Dr. Carroll Van West of the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation. "We thought that for the inaugural Rutherford County Heritage Month, we should thank everyone with new exhibits featuring exciting objects from our shared past."

"My new favorites," commented West, "is the greatly expanded Agriculture exhibit that highlights the research of Savannah Grandey, a MTSU undergrad alumni and now graduate student." That exhibit displays an original Tennessee Century Farm sign, one old flour bag from the Murfreesboro Mill Company, and trophies won by MTSU Agriculture Department students over the years.

For additional information, please contact the Heritage Center at (615) 217-8013 or visit www.hcmrc.org.

The Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County is a partnership between Main Street Murfreesboro, the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, the City of Murfreesboro, and Rutherford County Government. Located at 225 West College Street, the facility is open to the public from 10 am to 3 pm Monday through Friday. . Additional support comes from Rutherford County government and State Farm Insurance.