ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Museum preserves Gem City’s stories
Staff reports
The Marietta Museum of History in the
historic Kennesaw House on the Marietta
Square has entertained more than 300,000
visitors from every state and all over the
world since 1996.
The museum serves as the history hub for
Marietta, preserving its history and hosting
events and discussions about the city’s
storied past. It has been featured in shows
on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, The Discovery
Channel, the History Channel, and the Travel
Channel, and has even been studied for its
ghostly inhabitants.
In 2018, the Museum became an official
entity of the City of Marietta. The Education
Program at the Marietta Museum of History
accommodates school tours year round,
hosting more than 75,000 school children
through field trips since 2000. The Marietta
156 FACTBOOK 2021
During the early years of the Civil War,
the hotel was used as a Confederate hospital
and a morgue. In addition, Andrews’
Raiders stayed in a second floor room on
the evening prior to their theft of the steam
engine, “The General.”
As the war was nearing its climax in July
of 1864, the Union Army took over the
building, and when General Sherman came
through town on his “March to the Sea,” he
did not burn the Fletcher House. Sherman
spared the hotel because Dix Fletcher was a
Mason and because his son-in-law, Henry
Cole, was a Yankee spy. However, the fourth
floor did catch fire as ashes from other burning
buildings blew onto the roof, and the
fourth floor was not rebuilt.
For more information on the museum,
including the steps it has taken during the
coronavirus pandemic, visit mariettahistory.
org.
The Southern Museum
A Smithsonian Affiliate
See the General, the locomotive
made famous during one of the
most daring episodes of the
Civil War.
Museum of History has also provided mentoring
for the start of museums at Lockheed,
the Strand, Zion Church, the Marietta High
School Foundation, the Marietta City Fire
and Police Departments, and Turner Chapel.
The Kennesaw House, where the museum
is housed, was built as a cotton warehouse by
John Glover in 1845 and is one of Marietta’s
oldest buildings. Dix Fletcher purchased the
warehouse in 1855, and, after remodeling it,
opened the Fletcher House Hotel in its place.
2829 Cherokee St NW, Kennesaw, GA 30144 | www.southernmuseum.org
/www.southernmuseum.org