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Cayce Historical Museum to open 1800's Smokehouse Exhibit

The smokehouse dates back to the 1800's and shows how people used to preserve food.

The Cayce Historical Museum is preparing to open up their smokehouse exhibit in a building that has been around since the 1800's.

The museum, located next to Cayce City Hall, is home to artifacts collected over hundreds of years, telling the history of Saxe Gotha, Granby, Cayce and Native American communities going back to the Colonial Period. It's been there since 1991. 

Andy Thomas, who works at the museum, says they just finished up on a special project.

"We've created an exhibit here at the Cayce Museum where we tell people how the preserved foods before there was refrigeration," said Thomas. "We're using our 1820's smokehouse to do that."

According to Thomas, there were four different ways folks preserved food during that time period. It could be salted and smoked, dried, pickled, or fermented. Preserving food this way was very important, especially in the winter time.

The museum got the building two decades ago and have been working on it ever since. 

"It was here in Cayce at an historic residence, and it was moved here in 1992. We're fortunate to have this, to be able to put this smokehouse exhibit in. It is a real smokehouse," explained Thomas.

Since that time, the staff has put in a lot of work to make the smokehouse an exhibit for the community to enjoy.

RELATED: Cayce Historical Museum restores fire truck from 1936

And it isn't the only piece of property from the 1800's at the museum.

"They're really kind of jewels of this area because they're preserving our history and heritage in the area," said Thomas. "I hope they get a little more knowledge about how people lived in the past."

The museum is hoping to do a grand opening for the new exhibit in the near future. To check out the smokehouse before then, patrons can ask staff to view it, and still will be happy to open it up.

RELATED: 'Eat, sleep and play baseball,' remembering Cayce's Little League Legacy

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