Have you ever visited the oldest commercial building inTennessee’s Oldest Town. If not, the Chester Inn State Historic Site and Museumis hosting an Open House on Thursday, March 9^th from 6:00 pm until7:30 pm. Come by and check out the historic site after hours and view our newexhibits. If you have visited in the past, we encourage you to come back andvisit again. The Open House will also be the perfect opportunity to learn aboutbecoming a volunteer for the museum.

Do you love history?Do you love talking to people about history? The Chester Inn Museum iscurrently seeking any and all volunteers to fill a variety of positions. Inaddition to giving tours and staffing the museum, we also need volunteers towork with our archival collection, processing historical documents, and organizingartifacts. We are looking for Town Tour guides to offer tours exploring the historyand architecture of Jonesborough. Guides are also needed to give tours of Jonesborough’shistoric cemeteries. We invite you to come learn more about these excitingopportunities at our Open House.

The Chester Inn Museum is open March andApril on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 11-6 pm, and on Sundays from 1-5pm. From May-October the museum has regular hours 6 days a week beforereturning to a 4 day weekly schedule in November and December.

The Chester Inn Museum is a state-ownedhistoric site and is staffed by the Heritage Alliance, a local organizationdedicated to education and preservation. The museum is an integral part ofcommunity outreach, programming, and interpretation for the Heritage Alliance.Being a volunteer at the Chester Inn is a great way to get to know yourneighbors while also interacting with visitors from around the world. Tens ofthousands of people come through the museum every year.

The Chester Inn features a first floor museumthat has a mixture of permanent and temporary exhibit space. The permanentexhibits include wall panels focusing on the origins and evolution of the innand the town of Jonesborough. The temporary exhibits feature a rotating mix ofartifacts, photographs, and other items from the Heritage Alliance’s archivalcollection and cover a wide range of topics that usually center on localhistory or putting regional history into a larger context of national andinternational trends.

The 2^nd and 3^rd floorof the Inn includes a tour of three restored rooms: a dining room, parlor room,and lodging room, all restored to what they would have looked like in the late19^th century. The first floor museum is self-guided, but therestored rooms’ tour is led by a trained guide.

This Chester Inn is funded under an agreement with theTennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Tennessee HistoricCommission. For more information on the Chester Inn Museum or the HeritageAlliance please call our office at 423.753.9580 or the Chester Inn Museum at423.753.4580.  You can also contact theorganization via email at info@heritageall.org.  Additional information about the HeritageAlliance and its mission can be found online at http://www.heritageall.org/.Be sure to follow the Chester Inn and Heritage Alliance Facebook pages forupdates about events at the Chester Inn and other Heritage Alliance programs.