Life after the Salt Flats
36 ROME LIFE | MAY 2022
By Elizabeth Crumbly
The Savoy Museum, the
newest attraction under the
Georgia Museums umbrella,
takes its name from a car that
workers found while clearing
the facility’s 37-acre site in
Cartersville.
They worked their way in
from its outside boundaries and
unearthed a 1954 Plymouth
Savoy at the area’s center. The
car, now nearly 70 years old,
was mostly intact, according to
Savoy Director of Development
Tom Shinall, and it was the
only automobile they found on
the grounds.
“It was halfway buried in
the ground — vines grown
through it and trees, so we dug
it out, cut all the brush back
and saved that car because we
knew that we had to tell that
car’s story,” he said. “What’s
unique now is that we’re part
of that story.”
The car now sits on the
grounds of the museum
between the parking lot and
entry area.
The museum, located at
the corner of state Route 20
and U.S. 411, opened Dec. 8
of last year and has already
seen about 40,000 visitors
from the Northwest Georgia
region, metro Atlanta, Alabama
and Tennessee, along with
snowbird travelers from
farther away stopping in from
Interstate 75, Shinall said.
The plan is to go beyond the
stagnant display concept with
a rotation of themed exhibits,
each lasting about four months
in temporary spaces in the
museum, he said. One gallery
will remain dedicated to a
rotating display of cars that
belong permanently to the
Savoy.