Exhibits
The Delma and Beverly Presley Gallery
Uncharted Worlds: The Natural History of Georgia’s Coastal Plain
This exhibit transports you through millions of years of dramatic changes to Georgia’s landscape, from an ancient ocean with mosasaurs prowling the seas to forests and prairies with mastodons and mammoths, to the arrival of the first humans, and finally to the coastal plain we know today. Come face-to-face with a mosasaur, Tylosaurus proriger, a 78 million-year-old, 26 foot-long marine reptile, and Georgiacetus vogtlensis, a 41 million-year-old whale, the most primitive whale fossil discovered in North America. You will discover stories of giant sharks, ice age creatures, and research at Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Young visitors can “be a paleontologist” and explore the mosasaur inside and out.
The Jack and Addie D. Averitt Gallery
Charted Worlds: The Cultural History of Georgia’s Coastal Plain
As soon as the first humans reached the Coastal Plain approximately 13,000 years ago, they began to adapt to the unique environment, explore its resources and chart paths to create a home. This exhibit highlights important stories of the interactions between cultures and environment that created the distinct traditions and heritage of Georgia’s Coastal Plain. Explore an interactive timeline of regional Native American projectile points and pottery, traditional watercraft (including a dugout canoe and Ogeechee River boat), a rare antebellum cotton gin and turpentining artifacts. These artifacts and more highlight stories of a region defined by agriculture; the brutal system of slavery that long supported it; and the contributions to American art, craft, work, and leisure of the people who transformed it.
Changing Exhibit Gallery
Let’s Get Dressed
This exhibit, curated by Dr. Addie Martindale, celebrates the variety of identities that we have among our Georgia Southern students, faculty, and staff. We are all individuals, so how we dress is an individual experience that reflects aspects of our identities, including our ethnicity, gender, religion or culture, ability, and body size. Within our society, some individuals’ identities are represented more than others. However, all people have wonderful and unique elements of their identity that should not be hidden.
Exhibits Around Campus and Around Town
Museum on Main
The Museum on Main hosts free annual changing exhibits on the history and culture of Bulloch County and South Georgia developed by graduate students in the Public History Program. Located at the Statesboro Convention and Visitors Bureau at 222 S. Main Street in Statesboro. For hours, call (912) 259-9555
On exhibit until April 2024:
Behind the Pines: Uncovering Camp Lawton
Camp Lawton, in present-day Millen, was the world’s largest prison when it opened in October 1864. Learn how ongoing excavations and research by Georgia Southern University students and faculty continue to rediscover the stories of this Civil War POW camp.
Directions to the Museum on Main >
Nessmith-Lane Center on the Statesboro Campus
An Inspiring Past, A Promising Future: The Presley Exhibition
Trace the historical transformation of Georgia Southern University from its founding in 1906 through more than a century of struggle and triumph. This free exhibit is located at the Nessmith-Lane Center on the Statesboro Campus at 847 Plant Drive. For hours, call 912-478-5555.
Directions to the Nessmith-Lane Center >
Bulloch County Annex in Statesboro
Community and Conflict: Bulloch County’s Military Heritage
Exhibit Temporarily Closed for Building Renovation
This free permanent exhibit with changing elements traces Bulloch Countians’ involvement in U.S. wars from the Revolution to the present and preserves the names of those who died in service to their country since World War I. The exhibit is in the Bulloch County Annex at 115 North Main Street, Statesboro. Open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Directions to the Bulloch County Annex >
Last updated: 7/18/2023