Fort Worth Civil War museum, criticized by some and beloved by others, shutters
The Texas Civil War Museum located on Jim Wright Freeway in White Settlement closed its doors Thursday, after nearly 20 years in business.
Since 2006, one of the country’s largest public exhibits of Civil War memorabilia found its home in a faux southern manor in White Settlement, a few hundred feet off Loop 820. Collin Jefferson stood by the gift shop of the Texas Civil War Museum late Thursday morning, as the first of its final visitors began to trickle in. The store had mostly been scraped clean, save for some T-shirts and containers of disfigured, 0.58 caliber bullet casings selling for 92 cents a piece.
“The mood has been kind of sad,” Jefferson said. The 31-year-old Plano native sported the blue overcoat and cap of a Union infantryman, rifle and flask slung over his shoulder. He began volunteering at the museum as a docent about five years ago, having participated in Civil War reenactments since he was 14 years old. “We’ve gotten a lot of people to see the collection and give a thought to the history…