2007 City of Tifton, "Tift County Museum"

Tift County Museum of Arts and Heritage

The Tifton Museum of Arts and Heritage has been a part of the Tifton community for over 100 years. As the first brick church built in the community, it brought a refined elegance to the growing rural town at the turn of the century. Hundreds of Tiftonites, and later their children and grandchildren, were christened, married, and many memorialized in the beautiful Victorian Gothic structure built by Tifton's founder, Captain Henry Harding Tift, who came to Tifton from Connecticut.

Legend has it that the church (which was initially the First Methodist Church) was built of brick to protect it from Tifton's early feisty salon owners, who attempted to burn down wooden churches while they were under construction!

The vaulted ceiling is supported by massive arched buttresses, while intricate carved medallions and bull's-eye plinth block on the door and window moldings serve as a counterpoint to the ceiling's magnificent height and strength. The original bell tower, topped with a brass finial, is still intact.

In 1952, the original owners vacated the building to accommodate a growing congregation, and the building was occupied by various denominations until 1985, when the Tift County Development Authority purchased it.

Reopened and dedicated in the spring of 1997, the building today is operated by the Tifton Museum of Arts and Heritage Board of Directors and the volunteer Museum Guild.