Thanks to a city, proud of its heritage and desirous of preserving and sharing it with others, The Smithsonian Institute has been invited to return to Cedar Key with another in its Museum on Main Street series titled Crossroads: Change in Rural America. The Crossroads exhibit will be here from September 8 through October 13, 2018. Each of the six weeks will feature an aspect of Cedar Key’s Crossroads and will feature: the Cedar Key Historical Society and Museum, the Levy County Historical Society's "Railroads and Riverboats" exhibit, living shorelines, and more.
The first time the Smithsonian visited Cedar Key was from September 5 to October 24, 2014, with its Museum on Main Street exhibit: The Way We Worked, which featured how Cedar Key people worked here through the ages until today. Spotlighted were the ancient Indians at Shell Mound, Seahorse Key Lighthouse, historical walking and golf cart tours, and more.
The Crossroads exhibit is made possible by the recently received grant from the Florida Council of the Humanities To the Cedar Key Chamber of Commerce.
The Crossroads exhibit theme is best understood from the excerpt below from the Museum on Main Street website. It will help you grasp the exhibit’s importance and relevance to Cedar Key.
“In 1900, about 40% of Americans lived in rural areas, By 2010, less than 18% of the U.S. population lived in rural areas. In just over a century, massive economic and social changes led to massive growth of America's urban areas. Yet, less than 10% of the U.S. landmass is considered urban.
Many Americans assume that rural communities are endangered and hanging on by a thread—suffering from outmigration, ailing schools, and overused land. But that perception is far from true in many areas. Many rural Americans work hard to sustain their communities. Why should revitalizing the rural places left behind matter to those who remain, those who left, and those who will come in the future? All Americans benefit from rural America's successes. We can learn great things from listening to those stories. There is much more to the story of rural America!”
https://museumonmainstreet.org/content/crossroads
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