site. One of those buildings he moved to Jonesboro was his grandparents log house that he spent so much time in as a youth. Perhaps just as importantly, he and others demonstrated the "old-fashioned" crafts for the visitors - woodworking, cloth-making, open-hearth cooking, shoe-making, and the like. West's cause was greater than his teacher's salary. It also turned out to be larger than the vision of Georgia's political leadership. West tried and failed to get the State to take over his project before he died in 1961. Westville's Lumpkin Era However, the Fair was far from finished. Its rescue came from deep within rural Georgia and not from state government in Atlanta. Five years after West's death, the citizens of Stewart County decided to create a new industry---heritage tourism. Stewart County was at the time making a transition away from its traditional agricultural economy. The county still had many buildings and artifacts from the pre-Civil War days. It also had people who had grown up with the handicrafts that West loved. In some respects, then, the Stewart County of 1850 still existed in 1966. The salvation of the West collection came from a colleague who know John West, and probably spent time as a youth at his Fair of 1850 - Dr. Joseph Mahan, curator of the Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts (now Columbus Museum). Mahan took on the saving of West's legacy as his personal mission. Over dinner one evening at the Singers, Mahan explained the West Collection and his vision for the creation of a village where historic houses could be moved and saved, historic crafts and trades performed, and employ locals in the process. With much encouragement and leadership from Joseph Mahan, he received for the museum the donation of 59 acres of land on the south side of Lumpkin. Thus the establishment of Westville Historic Handicrafts in June, 1966. By 1969, the new museum had purchased the West Collection and opened to the public in Spring 1970. The six oldest buildings at the Jonesboro site were moved to Westville, along with many West artifacts. The rest of the collection has been assembled mostly by donation from many different people. In 2001 Westville Historic Handicrafts became Historic Westville with the goal of expanding interpretation from handicrafts to interpreting living history, demonstrations and crafts while telling the story of west Georgia history. Westville's executive board chairman, Tripp