A small group of Maplesville residents have come together to work on a big project: documenting the city’s long and rich history.

Joel Atchison helped found the Maplesville Historical Guild a few years ago. The organization is now collecting items for a new museum at the Maplesville Depot.

“Our motive is to research and gather all the information we can on this community,” said Atchison.

Atchison hopes the museum will open soon, filled with pictures, historical documents and information about the area called Old Maplesville in West Chilton County. This would include the areas known as Randolph, Stanton, Sardis, Isabella, New Convert and Lawley.

“We want to locate as much historical information as possible,” said Atchison. “We’ll take anything from the early 1900s on back.”

In its heyday, Maplesville was a booming stop for stagecoachs along a mail route and had more than 800 residents, Atchison said.

Atchison said anyone willing to share photos or letters can rest assured that the items would be just copied and safely returned.

“We don’t want to take their photos … just scan them in our computers and hand them back,” he said.

Atchison said the effort to collect pieces of history is important for the new museum and the town’s bicentennial anniversary in a few years.

For more information, contact Atchison at 334-366-4777 or jaatch@bellsouth.net of Clement Clapp at cclapp@bellsouth.net.

The Maplesville Historical Guild meets the third Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. at the Maplesville Library.