OUR Mission

The Museum & Cultural Center at 5ive Points is a regional history museum, cultural, and arts center telling the story of the Ocoee Region. It is a place for members of the community to gather, learn, and grow by connecting with our past and present while dreaming about the future. Whether through a history or art exhibit, creative workshop, music or cultural event, or one of our many children’s education programs, the Museum & Cultural Center at 5ive Points provides a way to enlighten our diverse community through self-discovery and scholarship.

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know."

— Harry S. Truman

On March 9, 1992, a committee was created to study the feasibility of establishing a museum in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Six years later ground was broken for the Museum, and on September 11, 1999 The Museum and Cultural Center at 5ive Points opened to the public.

We are a museum and cultural center that houses exhibits, artifacts, and art relating to the history of the Ocoee Region of Tennessee, which includes Bradley, Polk and East Hamilton Counties.

The Museum and Cultural Center at 5ive Points features a permanent exhibit, The River of Time, which traces the history of Bradley County. In addition, five to six changing exhibitions are held each year that focus on aspects of the history and culture of the Ocoee Region.

Over the past 20 years we have become a hub of cultural activities. Our facilities are used for in-house events, creative workshops, music and concerts, art exhibitions and children’s education programs. These rooms are also available for the public to rent for private and community events.

The Museum Gift Gallery offers arts and crafts made by artists living within a 150 mile radius of Cleveland. Many have been trained at the prestigious John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina, have won regional and national awards. and been schooled in the fine arts.

“In Tennessee the narrow strip of Cherokee territory secured by the New Echota Treaty was established into what was termed a surveyor’s district by an act of the General Assembly of Tennessee passed October 18, 1836. The territory was called the Ocoee District. Though the present counties of Bradley and Polk comprise much the larger portion of the Ocoee District, that portion of Hamilton County lying south of the Tennessee River and a strip along the eastern boundary of Monroe County were included in the District.

Beginning at the point where the Tennessee River enters the state of Alabama, the boundary of the Ocoee District follows the Tennessee River up to the mouth of the Hiwassee River and thence up the Hiwassee River to near the present site of Delano. From there the boundary line follows a northeasterly direction along the divide between the waters of the Tellico and Hiwassee Rivers to near Tallassee on the Little Tennessee River. It follows this river up to the North Carolina line, then follows South and west along the Tennessee state line back to the starting point on the Tennessee River.

The survey of the Ocoee District was made in 1837 by John B. Tipton, surveyor-general, assisted by John C. Kennedy, J.C. Tipton, T.H. Callaway, J.F. Cleveland, and John Hannah. The surveyors first established a basis or dividing line near the center of the district. The basis line ran from a point on the Hiwassee River at Calhoun south twenty degrees, then west to the south boundary of the state. Ranges six miles in width were then run out in the district and were numbered progressively from one to seven both east and west form the basis line.”

The History of Bradley County
History Committee, Bradley County Chapter East Tennessee Historical Society
1976, pg 40-41