Model Trains Running at New Museums
For more than forty years the model trains and town of Possum Ridge have been a holiday tradition delighting both children and adults. The site depicts a typical Mississippi railroad town of the 1940s. In its first year it consisted of a single block of an electrified Main Street with ten buildings, such as a bank, dry goods store, newspaper office, and restaurant.
Today the trains circle a town that has grown to include a depot, church, bakery, barbershop, icehouse, sawmill, cotton gin, train yard, and much more. There are also houses located off of Main Street, farmsteads, an agricultural airport, and even a river baptism scene. A model of the Panama Limited train runs on a track around the perimeter of the site, and two other trains may be running on other tracks at the same time.
Possum Ridge has moved this year from the Winter Building to the second floor of the new Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum complex. There is no charge to view the exhibit, which is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. The Possum Ridge exhibit will be closed on December 25.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. The department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, state and local government records management, and publications. The department is headquartered in the state-of-the-art William F. Winter Archives and History Building, located on the corner of North and Amite Streets in downtown Jackson. For more information call 601-576-6850 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.