photo courtesy of Rural Southwest Alabama

Tour Judson College – a historic women’s college: Notable buildings on campus include A. Howard Bean Hall, a Carnegie library which now houses the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame as well as classrooms. Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame, which occupies the main floor, was established to provide a permanent place of honor for Alabama’s most outstanding women and a place for people to visit and learn about the significant contributions that these women have made to our state and nation.

Alabama Military Hall of Honor Museum

Visit Marion Military Institute-Marion Military Institute (MMI) traces its origins back to 1842 with the creation of Howard College in Marion, Alabama by the Alabama Baptist Convention.  From 1863 to 1865, two buildings on the Howard College campus served the Confederacy as Breckenridge Military Hospital.

Be sure to visit the Hall of Honor.  This building was built circa 1832 as a law office. It was the first YMCA building in the South to be owned by a local chapter. The building served as the Marion City Hall for forty years. In the late 1960s, it was moved from the courthouse  square to the Marion Military Institute campus where it now serves as the Alabama Military Hall of Honor Museum, displaying portrait plaques of inductees and military artifacts.

Call ahead and ask for a step on guide through the Perry County Chamber. Perry County Chamber of Commerce: 334-683-9622

Lunch at Lottie’s Downtown
Enjoy the Fried Catfish or Soul food.
http://lottiesrestaurant.net/
Homestead Farms in Folsom, Alabama One of Alabama’s last active plantations; On the property surrounding the original home site one can visit the log seed house used with the first cotton gin, the second cotton gin, a carriage house, a smoke house, a chicken coop, and a potato house with a pit for the storage of vegetables, lard, and sausage.

The plantation store with its pot-bellied stove and other items of interest along with the blacksmith shop, and the weaving house offer a window into another time. The two-story early Federal/Greek Revival style house with clapboards covering the original log structure (Cooper’s home) along with a canning house, the overseer’s house, tenant quarters, barns, and a fire house with a 1930s fire engine, offer an experience of early Alabama life in an authentic setting.
Most of these structures date to the 1800s.
http://www.holmesteadcompany.com

Anticoch Baptist Church. For something new, but equally blended into the fabric of Alabama’s Black Belt, be sure to stop by the Anticoch Baptist Church. Built by Auburn University’s Rural Studio project, see cutting edge architecture developed with an eye toward functionality.