The Spear Hunting Museum
Tour of a Unique Hunting and Armament Museum in Alabama
Summerdale Alabama is home to the only Spear Hunting Museum in North America and is the pride of Gene Morris, the Greatest Living Spear Hunter.
Why the Spear Museum Tour
While doing research on ancient battle systems, I was studying the spear. While studying the spear past 1973 one cannot help but run into Gene Morris. Colonel Eugene C Morris, USAF, ret. began at age 40 to hunt big game animals with his homemade spears and nothing else. Declaring firearms unfair the already accomplished hunter hung up his guns in 1968 and started down a path that rediscovered the modern use of the spear in hunting. This journey has cumulated in two books and a museum. When I found out the museum was only one state over from me I discovered a road trip was in order.
Initial Tour of Museum
I made it to the Spear Hunting Museum on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Located off of State Hwy 59 in Summerdale Alabama, the one of a kind Spear Hunting Museum is the only one of its kind anywhere in the world. The 7600 sq foot museum opened in 2006 and is a tribute to Gene Morris personally and spear hunting as a whole. I met Heather, an accomplished spear hunter museum curator and disciple of the “World’s Greatest Living Spear Hunter” at the door. Heather greeted me and began a tour of the museum’s exhibits when I spotted Gene Morris through a side door going into the back of the museum. The retired Colonel, now 76 years of age, is an imposing gentleman of well over six feet with kind eyes but the handshake of a warrior. He introduced himself immediately and was delighted that I had come to the museum after doing my homework.
Spear Museum in Detail
The museum is packed floor to ceiling, wall to wall with mounts, trophies, and plaques of hundreds of animals including a cougar, an imposing lioness, dizzying arrays of African game, alligators, boars and more. Then of course there are the spears. Dozens of spears hang on the walls, are propped in corners, and are seemingly in every nook. These range from ancient battle and hunting spears from South America and Africa to Gene Morris’s own designs. He is responsible for the evolution of modern huge big game spears. These are as long as a cavalry lance, weigh as much as 30-40 pounds, and have nightmarish steel bladed points that look the stuff of the Predator of science fiction. The progressions of these designs are chronicled on the museums walls, alongside the animals they harvested.