CIVIL WAR MUSEUM TOURS

EVERY WEDNESDAY EVENING

The Captain Thomas Espy Post No. 153, Grand Army of the Republic(GAR), the Library's Civil War Museum, is now open for public tours every Wednesday evening, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.(last tour begins at 7:30 p.m.). Civil War guns, flags, uniforms, and other relics, brought back from the War by local veterans, can be viewed during each tour.

Organized in December of 1879, the Captain Thomas Espy Post No. 153 was one of the many chapters of the GAR, the fraternal organization formed by veterans of the Civil War. In January of 1906, the Board of Trustees of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library agreed to allow the Espy Post use of one of the new library building's rooms for their meetings and to store members' Civil War artifacts and other memorabilia. It was also agreed that "when the Post ceased to exist, the contents of the room would become the property of the Library to preserve and protect for all time."

A volunteer Docent, with knowledge of the Museum's artifacts and the Civil War, conducts each tour. The Ninth Pennsylvania Reserves, a Civil War reenactment group, assists the Library in caring for the Museum and its artifacts.

The Captain Thomas Espy Post, still in its original condition, is one of the oldest surviving Civil War veterans' posts in the country. You can learn more about the Espy Post at the Internet address

<http://www.clpgh.org/ein/andrcarn/hoursgar.html>.