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STRUCTURE Enlightenment
from testing
by Nikola Mojic
Customs House Museum & Cultural Center 1984–Present
In 1983, the City of Clarksville leased the building to the newly formed ClarksvilleMontgomery County Historical Museum. With some remodeling, the Museum opened in June 1984 to coincide with the city’s bicentennial celebration. The Museum expanded in 1996, adding 35,000 square feet to display more historical, artistic, cultural and scientific artifacts from its collections.
On January 22, 1999, destruction found Clarksville in the form of an F3 tornado. Five blocks of the downtown area were seriously damaged; over 100 buildings were destroyed, and another 560 were damaged. Fortunately, the Museum survived, but incurred nearly two million dollars in damage and closed for ten months. Upon reopening, the scope of the Museum expanded and the name shifted to the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center.
Embellished with terracotta, slate, copper and marble, the Museum is one of the most photographed buildings in Tennessee. With the addition of full-spectrum LED lights lining the perimeter of the roofline, the illuminated structure can be viewed from many vantage points in Downtown Clarksville.
The magnificent edifice stands today as a beacon of enlightenment for the community.
The Museum’s Greatest Artifact
BY ANNA WOTEN, CURATOR OF COLLECTIONS & REGISTRAR
“The building is unusually flamboyant in style for its size. Its highly pitched roof with large eagles on the four corners, its steep gabled windows and elaborate terracotta ornamentation combine to give importance to a relatively small building.”
- National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, June 1972
When museums decide to bring in objects for our collections, we do so with the understanding that we will preserve them for future generations. We have a number of tools and strategies at our disposal, but sometimes the objects are too large to sit safely within our carefully controlled Collections Storage. One such object is the Customs House itself!
Buildings bring their own set of challenges to preservation. Our collections are normally kept within environmentallycontrolled spaces, but the Customs House is constantly exposed to elements like weather and pollution. All of these factors slowly wear down and damage the historic structure, and it takes special care and attention to keep the building safe.
And although the building’s history is vital to Clarksville’s story, it is significant for another reason, too. The architecture of the Customs House is quite unique to the state of Tennessee. A mixture of Queen Anne and Stick styles, the Victorian structure is unlike anything else you will find in the state. It has been called “unusual” and “flamboyant” by historians in the past, but we are quite fond of it here at the Museum!
