Gem & Mineral Society of Franklin

I enjoyed my visit to the Franklin Gem & Mineral Museum. It’s housed in a very old building that actually used to be a jail. I can’t think of a better place for a museum that holds so many valuables. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that they don’t charge anything for admission. I made sure to buy something from the gift store because of this. The exhibits are located in several rooms on the first and second floor. As we started looking in the first room one of the volunteers was pretty much shadowing us. At first I thought this was rather odd, but I actually ended up being glad that he did. There are so many gems crammed into each display case and the placards only listed what the gem was. The volunteer was able to explain a lot of details and interesting facts about many of the pieces on display. If we would have been just looking at the pieces ourselves we would have missed out on a lot of interesting information.
My favorite exhibit was the fluorescent rock display. When you looked at them they appeared to be just normal rocks. Once you pushed a button the room darkened and a black light came on, revealing some amazing colors.
Upstairs they had an old jail cell you could go into. It was an interesting look into the building’s past.
It won’t take you long to complete your tour of the museum but I felt it was definitely worth the time to visit.