This exhibition, organized by the Blue Ridge Institute of Ferrum College, is believed to be the largest exhibit ever mounted on moonshining in the United States. Covering more than a century of moonshining in the mountains of Virginia, it tells the story of illegal alcohol distilling in defiance of the federal government’s excise tax. Items on display include actual stills, a full-size diorama of a still operation, still makers’ tools, dozens of period photographs, video interviews with moonshiners and federal agents, documents, and additional memorabilia.

'Heads and Tales' presents portraits of five people with compelling personal stories—a woman who inspired the English poet Alexander Pope; a royal governor who was murdered by a mob; a Federalist politician struggling against the tide in Jeffersonian Virginia; a patron of the arts who made his fortune as a robber baron in the Gilded Age; and a Virginia suffragette, freethinker, and political radical. Their tales are told by analysis of components of their pictorially complex portraits.

Visitors are surprised to recognize the many man-made items in the 'Flood Rubble Exhibit.' Sand, rocks and logs should be the only things found in rubble, but the exhibit contains "found" items typical of the river today -- including several types of plastic and glass. In an effort to educate the public about the remedies to this environmental hazard, the Nature Center includes a recycling box among the rubble to discourage litter and demonstrate items created from recycled materials -- including polar fleece, aluminum cans, plastic containers and paper.

This interactive exhibit will explain about the heart and lung systems, how blood is pumped through the body or where the air goes when we breathe.

Tour the historic Maymont House, including the new permanent exhibition 'In Service and Beyond: Domestic Work and Life in a Gilded Age Mansion.' Go to the basement for a self-guided tour of the belowstairs exhibit and to sign up for a guided tour of the upper floors. Guided tours on the hour and half-hour; last tour begins at 4:30pm.