Desoto County Museum

Robert Long

Hernando’s Hall of History

DeSoto County Museum sees growth with special exhibits and new programs.

With a mission to preserve and provide a fresh perspective on local history and an ever-expanding catalog of exhibits, the DeSoto County Museum on East Commerce Street is the perfect excuse for an educational afternoon getaway. “We’ve had some things in storage for many years that have just recently come out,” said Long. “Many of these have existed in our collection but are now being presented in a new way.”

“History is all about presentation,” said Robert Long, curator of the DeSoto County Museum. “A museum is no longer just a place where you just go and stare at a display. It’s all about telling the story, and you have to present it in a captivating way.”

Since Long took over as curator in November of 2018, exhibition space has more than doubled, with dozens of oldmade-new items and full-scale exhibits on display. Long, an award winning journalist and author with a penchant for storytelling, served as the longtime editor of the DeSoto Times-Tribune newspaper for the past two decades, with the majority of his time spent working on the first draft of history for Hernando and its surrounding cities.

“My two loves have always been writing and history,” Long said. “When you’re telling a story or helping share someone else’s story, you learn to listen and try your best to

` The DeSoto County Museum houses a wide range of historical artifacts gathered from 1541 to the present, covering everything from music, sports, entertainment, health care and two world wars. The museum played host to more than 1,000 school children over the course of a single day in fall of 2019 and recorded more than 26,000 visits overall that same year. In addition, the museum hosted guests from 16 foreign countries in 2019.

“This place is an absolute jewel,” Long said. ““All these stories are living and breathing, whether they came to us a 1,000 years ago or 50.”

The DeSoto County Museum’s newly expanded east room now hosts a mural that tracks the history of local media in a chronicle of DeSoto County history titled “Times of our Lives”.

“Like many communities, the development of the newspaper here in DeSoto County tells the story of a community,” said Long.

The mural offers a glimpse at the growth of the community from frontier times to modern day alongside items once used by local reporters to break the news more than a century ago, including typewriters and a camera from 1949 that once took a picture of Elvis during the height of its use.

A significant amount of space at the DeSoto County Museum has been devoted to examining and honoring the two Native American tribes from the region: the Chickasaw and the Choctaw. The Chickasaw exhibit in particular has a unique forthcoming attraction in the form of the recently unveiled and refurbished taxidermy bison that greets guests as they pass by the front desk. Other handcrafted and sometimes even centuries-old relics on display include doeskin moccasins alongside pottery, cutlery and various baubles.

“Our Chickasaw were nomadic,” Long said. “They hunted as far as the Great Plains and would salt the meat before bringing the hides back here for the roofs of their huts. None of our Native American population lived in tepees.”

Among the museum’s newer attractions is the Unknown Child Exhibit and a section devoted to examining the Jewish history of DeSoto County that includes Shemmah prayer books and a projector that shows a five-minute film. This section also features relics gathered by American GIs from Desoto County who were among the first to discover the horrific conditions of the concentration camps.

A striking memorial created by Doug Thornton of AERC that commemorates the 1.5 million children who died during the Holocaust serves as a solemn centerpiece and depicts a youth leaning against a crematorium door against a backdrop of 1.5 million pennies gathered by DeSoto County students.

“DeSoto County school kids were so moved by the Holocaust and this great story of loss that they created the background for this scene as part of what was called the Penny Project, to honor the 1.5 million children who were murdered by Nazis during the Second World War,” Long said.

The DeSoto County Museum also boasts a newfound emphasis on interactive exhibits to draw in younger guests.

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“History, to me, has always been something that can’t just be read in a book,” Long said. “You need to be able to see it, feel it, and even smell it. “ The interactive curiosities on display include a Nesbit, Mississippi, mail desk from 1905 with actual letters written around the turn of the century.

“We want people to be able to touch, look and read our letters,” Long said. “We wanted to show young people how time affects things. Just like how older people’s hair turns gray, our everyday items can age and change as they take on a life of their own.”

Local sponsors of the DeSoto County Museum include United Way of the Mid-South, Hernando Optimist Club, Desoto Arts Council, Sacred Heart School and many more. The DeSoto County Museum is open to the public free of charge, Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information on the DeSoto County Museum, visit them online at desotomuseum.org, call (662) 429-8852 or email desotocountymuseum@gmail.com.

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