After more than a year, the Limestone County Archives will open their doors to the public again, and their first exhibit is a special project prepared by four local Girl Scouts.

Ninth-grade Athens Bible School students Lillian Pennington, Jessie Green and Claire Sandlin worked alongside Athens Middle School eighth-grader Sarah Cagle for the exhibit. Their goal was to earn the Silver Award, the second-highest honor in scouting, by choosing a major project that required 50 hours of service from each of them. They all loved history and the community they grew up in, so they decided to design a keyed map that included the history behind 25 of Athens’ most famous streets. They spent hundreds of hours sifting through books, newspaper clippings, digital material, letters and maps, gleaning as much information about local streets like Washington and Monroe. By the time the girls were done, they had taken a boring street map and transformed it into a living, interactive document. The exhibit, aptly named “Driving Forces: How Athens Got Here,” also includes a photo display of local historical markers and the stories behind them.

The exhibit will be featured in the research room at the Archives, starting with the grand reopening from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Thursday and continuing through early December. Pennington, Green, Sandlin and Cagle will also be available at the reopening to answer questions about their work.

Green was responsible for gathering information on Beaty Street, which she found terribly fascinating. “He was one of our city’s founding fathers and put a lot of time and money into making this a city,” she said. “It was amazing how much we were able to find out about this city at the library and archives.”

“We learned a lot about the history of this area, little stories that we didn’t get taught in school,” Pennington said. “We thought it would be good if other people could know about our town’s history, too.”

Rebekah Davis, archivist at Limestone County Archives, has worked closely with the Scouts since they started the project in July.

“Our mission is preserving and sharing the history of Limestone County so that it is available today and for generations to come, and that only happens when people like these Girl Scouts take ownership of and pride in their community,” she said.

Built in 1905, Limestone County Archives is located in the former L&N Passenger Depot and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been closed for over a year to allow for $479,000 in repairs, including the installation of a fire suppression system, the removal of lead-based paint and extensive renovations to the inside and outside of the building. The installation of ultraviolet-blocking film on the windows and humidity and temperature data recorders will help preserve the many valuable documents housed in the Archives.

“Driving Forces: How Athens Got Here” will be the first of many traveling exhibits Davis intends to display at the archives. The grand reopening, including a tour of the renovated facility and the exhibit, will be open to the public.