Three Alexandria Museums Participate in Free Museum Day

Three Alexandria museums are participating in the Smithsonian’s 8th annual Museum Day Live! celebrating education through museums and cultural institutions.

On Sept. 29 , and the will be offering free admission to anyone presenting a Museum Day Ticket.

The ticket is available to download. Visitors who present the official pass will gain free admission for two people to participating museums and cultural venues. Last year’s event attracted more than 350,000 people to over 1,400 museums across the nation. 

Gadsby’s Tavern Museum, 134 N. Royal St., consists of two buildings, a circa 1785 tavern and the 1792 City Hotel, which are named for John Gadsby who operated them from 1796 to 1808. Visitors to the historic tavern will learn about the history, architecture, decorative arts, social customs, food and clothing of a past era.

At the Alexandria Archaeology Museum, located inside the Torpedo Factory Art Center (105 North Union St., #327), visitors can discover Alexandria’s once-buried past through artifacts and excavations. Also on display is Alexandria’s oldest artifact, a 13,000-year-old Clovis point recovered in 2007.

The Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum, 105-107 South Fairfax St., is noted for its outstanding collection of shop furnishings, apothecary bottles and equipment, and archival materials, many still in their original location. When the Apothecary closed during the Depression, in 1933, the doors were simply locked, preserving the contents for history. More than 8,000 objects, including pill rollers, mortars and pestles, drug mills, and hand-blown glass medicine bottles with gold-leaf labels, were left in place.