Small N.C. museum making big changes to preserve Cherokee history By JILL INGRAM Asheville Citizen-Times ROBBINSVILLE, N.C. - The tiny museum in Graham County dedicated to highlighting the area's unique place in Cherokee history is in the midst of renovations and creating new exhibits that organizers hope will draw more visitors. The Junaluska Memorial Site and Museum in the past year was named an interpretive site along the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, a collection of sites and thoroughfares that stretches from the East Coast to Oklahoma. Many of the museum's changes will reflect that designation, with an emphasis on interpretation. "We want to tell the story of this area as accurately and thoroughly as we can," said T.J. Holland, the museum manager. The Cherokee walked what would come to be known as the Trail of Tears in 1838-39 during a forced western deportation. About 16,000 Cherokee made the trip, roughly 3,000 from North Carolina. Different sources name different numbers of deaths. Holland estimates 2,000 to 4,000, but some estimates are as high as 8,000. Holland maintains the trail has less to do with the Eastern Band than with Oklahoma's Cherokee Nation. "The story of Snowbird and the Eastern Band is the story of resistance," Holland said. "If our story was the Trail of Tears, we wouldn't be here." The goal isn't to compete with larger museums that focus on the Cherokee and other native peoples, but to highlight the unique place Graham County has in the history of the Cherokee. The museum already has a lot going for it. It's close to downtown Robbinsville, an adorable stretch that residents say is growing at a slow but steady pace. Graham County also is home to the Snowbird Cherokee, a community whose ancestors resisted removal and who have the reputation for holding tight the traditional lifestyle. The county also holds the only stretch of road in North Carolina cut expressly for Cherokee removal and one of the very few nationwide whose original traces remain, the Tatham Gap Trail. And just up the hill from the museum is the burial place of Junaluska, a respected Cherokee leader. At 29, Holland is a walking, talking encyclopedia of local Cherokee lore and quite possibly a potential rabble-rouser in the Cherokee world. For the past year, Holland has been immersed in research at places such as Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill and the National Archives in Washington unearthing material that will help with creating new exhibits. "My big fear is that we're going to make a lot of people mad because this is not your traditional Trail of Tears story," Holland said. An afternoon with Holland, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band who majored in fine art at Western Carolina University, is a roller-coaster ride through history, some of it in the Cherokee language, although he's not fluent. Driving on the gravel Forest Service road that roughly parallels the Tatham Gap Trail, Holland points out where the Cherokee rested their horses during their first day on the trail and the different places the road cuts across the trail. He knows who led the Cherokee detachment (Jesse Bushyhead), when they left (summer 1838), how many made the trip (about 300) and the illness that awaited many of them (whooping cough). The museum is a tribal enterprise, and Holland has big plans for transforming the tiny space, which was formerly a house. Holland envisions the front room, now overwhelmed with massive, arrowhead-shaped cases that hold artifacts, as heavy on interpretation of the Trail of Tears and Junaluska and their significance to that area. While never a chief, Junaluska (born circa 1779, died 1858) is much admired by the Cherokee. He was a warrior who fought alongside U.S. troops against the Creeks and after his forced removal along the Trail of Tears returned home again. Of the museum's two other rooms of display space, one will be dedicated to Snowbird and the other will house artifacts, many of which Holland wants to put in smaller cases with drawers to conserve space. Holland hopes the renovations, which will include new paint, cases, interpretive panels and display pieces, will be done by Nov. 10, this year's date of an annual wreath-laying ceremony at Junaluska's grave. After that, Holland will concentrate on raising the attendance figure, which stands at about 1,500 a year. "The people who find us, they have to come looking," he said. Renissa Walker, of the tribe's Cherokee Culture and Language Program and Holland's boss, said the museum will close briefly after this summer for installation of the new exhibits and other work. "We're hoping that the improvements ... will help attract more people to the museum," Walker said. "It's a wonderful little museum. Down the road, Holland hopes for a new facility. "That's the big dream," said Holland, who along with one other person are the museum's two employees. "Right now, though, I'm going to concern myself with the task at hand, to work with what I've got." While the museum is small, it is an important addition to the national Trail of Tears, said Brett Riggs, an archaeologist with the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at UNC who has spent years researching Cherokee-related sites. The museum is moving in the right direction with interpretation, the hallmark of contemporary museums, he said. "They can't just be stuff in cases," Riggs said. And while the museum will undoubtedly attract Trail of Tears aficionados, locals could learn from it, too, he said. "There's a lot of that history that's not locally known," Riggs said, naming the Snowbird legacy of resistance as an example. "That was a watershed event," he said. In fact, with its specialized approach, the Junaluska museum is fulfilling the historic Trail of Tears mission, said Jane Eastman, president of the board of the N.C. chapter of the Trail of Tears Association and director of the Cherokee Studies program at Western Carolina University. "We hope that those interpretive centers can offer the unique story for that place," Eastman said.