BARTOW, Fla. — In one of the most beautiful buildings downtown, you'll find the Polk County Historical Museum.
The white building, silver rotunda and clock on top are a focal point of downtown Bartow.
Inside, you can take a trip through Polk County's history.
You can walk through the exhibits, reading everything from Polk County history.
Myrtice Young, Historic Preservation Manager for Polk County said, "We'd like to say that we are the concierge for Polk County history. So you come here you get an introduction, get a little taste of what our early history was like, and then we send it out into the world on our Heritage Trail, visit history as it happened and where it happened."
Guests can walk through the museum exhibits on their own or request a tour. You can even find out how the building came into existence.
"One of the most interesting things about our history, specific to Bartow is that this location was dedicated, the land that this building is set on was dedicated by cattle baron Jacob Summerlin. And he liked this area. He amassed a fortune moving cattle across the state and was really happy about Bartow. So he dedicated 120 acres of land because he wanted this area to be the center of government. So what happened is we built a courthouse, one of his requests was one school and two churches," explained Young.
There are exhibits for everyone, young and old. In fact, you may notice things are different if you have been here before, too.
"We have the exhibits that are permanent. But we swap out artifacts, we have changing exhibits and changing programs. So when you come it's a text-rich environment. So it usually takes two or three visits to just get through the galleries and to learn about what we have here," said Young.
You can find out more about their events and exhibits by clicking here.
