Pickett Chamber Gets $14K For Historic Cabin

The Byrdstown-Pickett Chamber of Commerce received $14,000 from the Tennessee State Museum to finish working on its historic cabin project.

Executive Director Bill Robbins said the money will pay to add electricity, an HVAC system, and a camera security system to the cabin. Robbins said the cabin will be ready to open as a local museum once these additions are completed.

“We don’t have that kind of budget to put that forward,” Robbins said. “We had to do a, go out and do a campaign to get the money up to finish it up. This is going to make it be a lot quicker and a lot easier to have it forward in one big lump. And we’ve been working on this project now going on three years.”

Robbins said they are waiting for their contractor to finish the cabin building itself before the interior work can begin. Robbins said he hopes to have the entire project complete by next March.

“We’re excited about getting to finish it up,” Robbins said. “It’s been an extended project, longer than we really wanted to take, and we’re hoping to get it open for the public for viewing soon and a lot of people are looking forward to that.”

Robbins said the cabin will serve as an extension of the county’s Borderlands Museum, which explores the local impact of the Civil War.

“We’ve already got several museum pieces to put in it,” Robbins said. “And we just need a place where can house it and be a controlled environment and monitored environment.”

Robbins said they will be able to start working on their plans to add a living era village to the property once the cabin is complete.

“Under the conditions of this grant, this lady gave us the land, we had three phases: to build a welcome center, to redo the log cabin, and to create a living era village is what the three objectives were,” Robbins said. “We’re on phase two right now so it’s tied in with the actual creation of the welcome center.”