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24 meetings rather than trials. Downstairs there is an intact rail car and track section from the Civil War but Maier says the gold mine inside the museum is complete records – wills, estates, census documents, newspapers, family and community histories – dating to the founding of Shelby County. "We're very well-respected for our collection, which is well- maintained," Maier says. With a grant from the Mormon Church, over the next five to seven years Maier hopes to convert to digital format the tens of thousands of aging paper documents and place them online. When the project is completed, genealogists won't be limited to the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekday hours of the museum. Maier anticipates continuing to welcome the hundreds of annual visitors from schools, churches and senior citizen groups that arrive each day to admire the bell from the locomotive Alabama, the first issue of the Alabama Reporter newspaper from Sept. 27, 1843 and other unique pieces. "We know we have a wonderful thing going here in Columbiana," Maier says. "When people visit the museum, we want them to stay for the day and see the rest of our town." On the verge of Mount Vernon Maier often sends visitors down the street for a surprise: one of the world's largest collections of George Washington artifacts. Most people outside Columbiana have no idea they can get so close to the Father of Our Country without traveling to Virginia or Washington, D.C. "We really don't disclose what the value of the collection is," says museum director Don Relyea. "Let's just say it is substantial." From Martha Washington's personal prayer book and letter box to letters written by the Washingtons as well as Presidents James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams and Vice Presidents Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun, Relyea oversees a legitimate treasury. In a June 30, 1776 letter penned in Philadelphia by John Adams, the Continental Congress delegate tells Matthew Tilghman he can't attend an event because of a recent robbery. "He was making excuses why he couldn't leave at the time," says Relyea, noting that Adams was leading the debates that led days later to the Declaration of Independence. Included in the Karl C. Harrison Museum of George Washington is a 1787 sketch of Mount Vernon by Samuel Vaughn. There is cloth from the lining of Washington's coffin that was unearthed in 1837 when the body was moved. A pair of George Washington's cufflinks is among Harrison's collection. More than 1,000 Washington items in museum.