Spear Hunting Museum – Summerdale, Alabama - Atlas Obscura

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Spear Hunting Museum

Summerdale, Alabama

Founded by a man who called himself the greatest hunter alive. 

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It didn’t open until December of 2006. And it’s not much more than a small trailer with an electronic sign out front pointing its way. But the Spear Hunting Museum in Alabama has received a lot of press attention, both positive and negative.

Founded by Gene Morris, a septuagenarian when the museum was first constructed, the Spear Hunting Museum is dedicated to none other than Morris himself. He’s known as the “greatest living spear hunter in the world,” according to, once again, himself.

A retired Air Force colonel, Morris killed more than 500 animals using only spears. “I stopped hunting with guns in 1968,” he said once, “basically because it had just gotten too easy.” He went from guns to bow hunting to hunting with two-handed spears to hunting with one spear in each hand, sometimes killing two animals at once. And that’s not just a freak incident; Morris has killed two animals at once on more than a dozen occasions.

Inside of the museum, visitors can see many of the different animals that Morris has killed, including cape buffalo, lions, kudu, wildebeest, gemsbok, zebras, ostriches, wolves, cougars, bears, boars, goats, turkeys, rams, sheep, deer, alligators, elk, and more.  At the gift shop, visitors can purchase a special spear designed by Morris himself, the books on the art that Morris has written in his many years, and DVDs of Morris teaching various spear skills.

You can get a sense of the place from this film by Adam Roffman:

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July 5, 2011

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