Burritt Museum

THE BURRITT MUSEUM "TREASURE HUNT"

Our next stop on Monte Sano is among Huntsville's most unique architectural landmarks, the Burritt Museum. It has a unique collection of 19th century historic rural structures and nature trails. It is a museum of the regional history of the people and environment of the Southern Cumberland region of Tennessee and Alabama. It also houses a small collection of minerals and Indian artifacts.

On this visit, the students will be asked to locate all the different ways that stones and rocks are used throughout the mansion and its surrounding gardens and park and note them down as a list. While they hunt around for the different ways stones are used, they should also visit the numerous collections displayed here. Whoever completes the longest list wins.

The front of the mansion. Note the stoneflags.
Photo courtesy of : http://hea-www.harvard.edu/hrc_art/huntsv/burritt.html

The view from the front of the mansion. View of the living room. (Photo courtesy of
Note the stone wall. the Burritt Museum)

The following photos show examples of what students will list as lithological applications.

The students will be able to appreciate the historical usage of stones and rocks when observing these Indian artifacts that have been found in archeological sites in the vicinity of Huntsville.

Some examples of the Mineral Collection with fossil samples are shown in the following photos:

The students will be able to compare some of their fossil identification with the fossils in the collection above. They will also compare some of these fossils with the ones they might encounter on the road cut we will visit next.

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