It was built in 1854 by Dr. Lemuel Lovett Alston as a Greek Revival I-house, a vernacular style also known in the South as Plantation Plain.

The house was subsequently owned by the Bettis, Cobb, Bumpers, and Postma families until it was purchased by the Clarke County Historical Society in 1980.

The historical society restored the house and opened it as the Clarke County Museum in 1986.

The museum features exhibits that cover a broad range of topics from Zeuglodon fossils to the American Civil War and an antebellum kitchen.

It is a log cabin with two large rooms separated by a breezeway, a form often known as a dogtrot house, and dates to the mid-19th century.