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A little piece of the nation’s museum, the Smithsonian Institute, is now on display at the Bluegrass Heritage Museum in Winchester.

“Spark! Places of Innovation” opened to the public on Saturday during a special unveiling at the museum and will run free to the public through the month of August.

The exhibit celebrates economic revival in small towns across the United States and is made possible by the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street Program and the Kentucky Humanities Council.

“It delves into small, rural communities that lost their factories or their primary way of people making a living,” said museum director Sandy Stults. “Like, for example, a coal mining community when the coal companies went out of business…So, it talks about these communities, there are about five, and they talk about how these people have come together, brainstormed and come up with innovative ways to bring back the economy.”

The exhibit details the stories of towns from New York to Wisconsin to West Virginia.

“Most of the time, what they are doing is concentrating on tourism,” Stults said. “There are different areas like art, technology, social and heritage.”

The exhibit is housed in the Valentine House, which is located behind the museum and contains a variety of interactive installations.

Patrons can access supplemental videos via a mobile video player or their smartphone after scanning a QR code at the entrance.

The exhibit also focuses on two innovations in Clark County’s history. The first is the legendary local soft drink Ale-8 and the second is the bluegrass seed stripper, a machine that helped local farmers harvest a vital cash crop over 100 years ago.

The museum will host two more events tied to the exhibit.

At 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 14, Clay Wills and Shane Wiseman will be at the museum to discuss farming innovations and bring antique farm implements for display.

On Tuesday, Aug. 22, there will be a trolley tour to Mt. Folly Farm to hear Laura Freeman discuss her organic approach to farming. The trolley will leave the museum at 5:30 p.m., and there will be a box supper included. This event will require reservations.

This is the third exhibit from the Smithsonian that the museum has hosted. The previous two were “Journey Stories,” which focused on American westward expansion and “New Harmonies,” which focused on American musical innovation.

To be able to host the exhibit, the museum had to meet the necessary space requirements and have letters of support from the community.

Setting up the exhibit was a challenging feat too.

“There were several of us that had to go to Boone County, that was the first place that had, we had to be there in order to help them put it together so that we could learn how to do it,” Stults said.

A legion of local volunteers and some from the Kentucky Humanities Council came to help assemble the exhibit once it came to Clark County.

Once the exhibit was installed, the volunteers had to lug the heavy storage crates across the street to a local bank since the museum had nowhere to put them.

“Oh yes, it does,” Stults said when asked if it takes more muscle to work in a museum than people think.

The Bluegrass Heritage Museum is located at 217 South Main Street and is open from noon to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday.