Clarksville Montgomery County Library has Civil War Photo Contest Exhibit on Display

Clarksville, TN – A winning photograph of cannon at Fort Donelson by Clarksville Middle-school student Miles Wilbur is among photographs currently on display at the Clarksville-Montgomery County Public Library as it hosts the photo exhibit “Living Legacies: Capturing the Scenic Beauty in Tennessee’s Civil War Heritage.”

The exhibit is located in the library’s first-floor alcove (behind the fiction section). At the end of May the exhibit will close and move to the Obion County Public Library.

The traveling exhibit, which has been on the road since June 2012, consists of the 22 top images submitted to Scenic Tennessee’s 2011-2012 photo contest by professional, amateur and student photographers throughout the state and beyond.

Co-sponsored by the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the contest invited participants to “help tell Tennessee’s full Civil War story” by focusing not only on the war’s military sites but its home front, occupation, and emancipation landscapes as well.

The winners ranged from a twilight photograph of bridge pilings in the Mississippi River, to a stark, black-and-white photo of an anonymous grave marker (“Unknown Soldier, No. 7”) to a sepia-toned shot inside the private rooms of Lt. General James Longstreet in Russellville, Hamblen County. (All winning images can be viewed online at www.scenictennessee.org.)

Judges for the contest included Dr. Spurgeon King, associate director of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area; Robin Conover, editor and photojournalist at The Tennessee Magazine; and Mack Prichard, Tennessee State Naturalist Emeritus. The exhibit was curated by Amy Kostine, a graduate assistant at the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University.

As with past competitions, Scenic Tennessee named three top places and several honorable mentions in four categories. (Miles Wilbur’s photo of Fort Donelson received the $50.00 second-place award in the middle-school division.)

Two additional photographs included in the exhibit, dubbed “Preservationists’ Picks” by contest organizers, highlight the modern-day battles that are still being waged (and occasionally won) by Civil War sites faced with deterioration, urban encroachment and limited funding.

This event is free and open to the public.

Clarksville-Montgomery County Library is located at 350 Pageant Lane, Suite 501 Clarksville, TN.

For more information call 931.648.8826 or 931.648.8831 or visit their website www.clarksville.org