Free day at two Georgia museums

Two historic facilities in Georgia are among 1,300 museums coast to coast that will be open at no charge Saturday for the seventh annual Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day. The observance is designed to celebrate open access to education and the dissemination of knowledge.

All that's required for admission is a Museum Day ticket; the download for printing is at www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday. On-site donations will be accepted for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation.

* TUNNEL HILL: The Western & Atlantic Railroad Tunnel and Museum, 215 Clisby Austin Road, will be open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday.

Visitors may take guided tours through the 1,477-foot tunnel, circa 1850, the oldest railroad tunnel in the South. Also on the campus are the 1848 Clisby Austin House and the Heritage Center, which contains artifacts from the construction and renovation of the tunnel, railroad memorabilia and Civil War artifacts, Cherokee Indian artifacts and chenille bedspreads and machinery from Dalton's early tufting industry.

For more information, call 706-876-1571 or visit www.tunnelhillheritagecenter.com.

* ROME: Chieftains Museum, 501 Riverside Parkway, will be open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday.

The Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home, originally built in the late 1790s, was the home of Cherokee leader and his family from 1819 until their departure for the Western Territories in 1837. It tells the story of the Cherokee in Northwest Georgia before the removal and decisions that were made in the house that ultimately led to the Trail of Tears.

Exhibits tell the stories of the Mississipian/Coosa, precursors of the Cherokee, ways and customs of the Cherokee pre- and immediately post-contact with the Europeans, the story of the prosperous Ridge family, the signing of the Treaty of New Echota and the removal of the Cherokee from their ancestral lands.

For more information, call 706-291-9494 or visit www.chieftainsmuseum.org.

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