Houston Memorial Library: Athens and Its Governor

This eighteen thirty-five house in Athens, Alabama was home to one of Reconstruction-era Alabama's most significant political figures: George Smith Houston, who served in Congress through most of the eighteen forties and fifties, then became governor of Alabama in eighteen seventy-four after the state emerged from Reconstruction, and died in office as a United States Senator in eighteen seventy-nine. His heirs donated the house to the city of Athens to be preserved as a public library and museum, and it has served in that dual role since nineteen thirty-eight, making it one of the few places in the country where you can browse new book releases surrounded by antebellum furniture and portraits of a nineteenth-century congressman.