{"id":1335,"slug":"vaughan-smitherman-museum-selma-alabama","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Vaughan-Smitherman is the building that was everything — the Masons' 1847 school for their orphans, then the Confederate hospital, then the Freedmen's Bureau hospital that made it Selma's first African-American hospital, then the county courthouse, the military school, and finally the Vaughan Memorial Hospital for fifty years. The Greek Revival block on Union Street has held every version of Selma — the school, the war, Reconstruction, the county government, and the hospital — in a single building.","The museum keeps it all — the third floor restored to the Vaughan Memorial Hospital ward, the Art Lewis documents, the Confederate Naval Foundry artifacts fished from the Alabama River where Wilson's men threw them in 1865. Named for the doctor and the mayor — Smitherman served thirty-five years — the building is on the Selma to Montgomery Trail: the orphan school that became the hospital that became the courthouse that became the museum that tells the whole story.","The file keeps the Vaughan-Smitherman: the 1847 Masonic school, the two hospitals, the courthouse, and the museum of all of Selma's lives.","Vaughan-Smitherman is the archive's every-function file — the building that was school, hospital, courthouse, and museum."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Vaughan-Smitherman is the archive's every-function file — the 1847 building that held every institution Selma had.","A building keeps all its lives — the file's suggestion being that the Vaughan-Smitherman's hold is the completeness: the Masonic school, the Confederate and Freedmen's hospitals, the courthouse, and the museum that kept the foundry pieces the soldiers threw in the river."]}],"name":"Vaughan-Smitherman Museum","aliases":[],"type":"MUSEUM","type_label":"Museum","cats":["HAUNTED_PLACE"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Museum in Selma; research record.","full_desc":"A museum in Selma, Alabama, Vaughan-Smitherman Museum is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Museum in Selma; research record. The archive files it under haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip. Names, dates and reports are filed together here, so the record stays honest about which is which.","address":"109 Union Street","city":"Selma","county":"Dallas County","state":"Alabama","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":32.416983,"lon":-87.035702,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery pass. Precise location, historical chronology and current visitor conditions require independent enrichment. Confidence concerns provenance only.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":40.6,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":597,"type":"HAUNTING","description":"Southern Spirit Guide reports footsteps and unexplained electrical activity. Museums collect the dead's effects by definition; Vaughan-Smitherman Museum's reports are the interpretation nobody scheduled. Witnesses report it; the record leaves it there. The account appears in 'Alabama Hauntings — County by County, Part III'. The haunting claim is now part of the site's identity, filed alongside the documented history.","evidence":"REPORTED_EXPERIENCE","evidence_label":"Reported experience","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.5,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Alabama Hauntings — County by County, Part III","url":"https://www.southernspiritguide.org/alabama-hauntings-county-by-county-part-iii/","publisher":"Southern Spirit Guide","type":"BLOG","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Alabama Hauntings — County by County, Part III","url":"https://www.southernspiritguide.org/alabama-hauntings-county-by-county-part-iii/","publisher":"Southern Spirit Guide","type":"BLOG","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Joseph T. Smitherman Historic Building","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_T._Smitherman_Historic_Building","desc":"United States historic place","extract":"The Joseph T. Smitherman Historic Building, also known by a variety of other names throughout its history, is a historic Greek Revival building in Selma, Alabama, United States. Completed in 1847, it has served many functions in the more than 160 years of its existence. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 20, 1975, due to its architectural and historical significance. It currently houses the Vaughan-Smitherman Museum, a museum depicting Selma's history.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Smitherman_Building_Selma.jpg/330px-Smitherman_Building_Selma.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":68,"lat":32.405,"lon":-87.02583333},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}