Richmond Hill History Museum

The building in which the museum is housed was built in 1940 by Richmond Hill's most famous residents, automobile industrialist Henry Ford and his wife, Clara. The building served as a kindergarten to local children. Today, we continue that tradition by teaching residents and visitors alike about the history of the little town of Ways Station, Georgia, now known as Richmond Hill. Like the Fords, generations have made their homes along the Great Ogeechee river and surrounding waterways. Our first residents, the Gualie Indians, created villages along its sandy shoreline. General James Oglethorpe built defenses on it earliest days of the Georgia colony. The proximity of the Ogeechee was the salient factor in rice evolving into the primary cash crop here in the 19th century. African slaves worked the rice fields and helped build Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee which was known as the "Guardian of Savannah" during the Civil War.