In 2004, Herman McDaniel, who grew up in Murray County, Georgia, teamed with Nevins Frankel, with whom he had worked at the Bureau of the Census, to create an unusual museum dedicated to researching, organizing, and recording facets of Murray County's past in a virtual museum that would never actually exist in the traditional sense of displays in one or more buildings. Their museum has no walls, no roof, and no employees, yet it has unlimited space for expansion.

The museum is open to visitors 24 hours day, every day, yet it has no staffing issues. Anyone who has Internet access using any computer device or cell-phone from anywhere in the world can visit this unusual museum without physically leaving their home, office, or campus. McDaniel's original museum still exists as: http://murraycountymuseum.com/

This museum has no traditional museum displays yet some people linger for hours exploring its countless exhibits. They can see dozens of quilts created by Murray quilters, examine art created by Murray artists, browse hundred of pictures of Murray citizens, including members of the Vann family when present-day Murray County was still The Cherokee Nation. Photographs also include early settlers, and numerous military men from our Civil War to Vietnam. Old newspaper articles reporting highlights and bad times in Murray County's past make fascinating reading for history buffs. Some articles are from 200 years ago.

Murray County dedicated an impressive Veterans Memorial Park in 2010, honoring all Murray men and women who have honorably served. Murray native, General James L. Terry was the principal speaker at that ceremony.

Hundreds of memorial bricks are now displayed in that park where citizens spend long periods reading the names on the bricks and conjuring up images of the people they honor. All of the known Murray war dead from the Vietnam War back to the Civil War are honored in a Walk of Murray's War Dead, highlighted by red, white, and blue roping.

The governing committee responsible for creating and maintaining the Veterans Memorial Park has long discussed the idea of building a tradition Veterans museum adjacent to the park but in 2019 decided they would abandon that idea.

As soon as McDaniel, who now lives in Myrtle Beach, SC, learned of this decision, he called Nevins Frankel in Pennsylvania to discuss a possible option that he wanted to show the committee members of the Veterans Memorial Park. Together McDaniel and Frankel selected and copied relevant sections of the 2004 online museum to a separate computer storage area and gave it a tentative name: Murray County Veterans Museum. They created a working prototype of that idea in order to demonstrate the concept to the Veterans Park committee members. McDaniel also requested that Commissioner Greg Hogan, Sheriff Langford, and a few earlier Veterans Park committee members be invited.

Commissioner Hogan invited the group to use his Hearing Room in the Courthouse annex, on Tuesday, April 23, 2019. McDaniel explained that he wanted to show a prototype of a potential Murray County Veterans Museum and led the group through examples of things they could find in the new museum, including full texts of several books that people researching their own veterans can search in the new museum. When he concluded his show-and-tell presentation, McDaniel invited attendees to ask questions and share their thoughts and comments to the proposed idea of a Murray County Veterans Museum that will exist only in cyberspace.

Harrison Parker, chairman of the governing group of Veterans Memorial Park asked for and was granted permission to take a vote of his committee members as to whether they would welcome such a museum as the prototype they had just seen as their Murray Veterans Museum. All voted in favor of adopting the prototype; none abstained.

McDaniel told the attendees that since he had created most of the material and owned the copyrights, he would not turn over ownership or control for either museum to the county. He explained that he wants to continue to operate both museums and pledged to pay all operating expenses for several years. Nobody took issue with this.

McDaniel also said that he is leaving sufficient money in his will to continue paying for operating expenses of both of his museums for several years. Consequently, endorsing and promoting use of the two museums will cost Murray County Government and the Murray County Veterans Park nothing.

More importantly, Veterans Park Committee's long discussed idea for a Murray County Veterans Museum had not died; it was suddenly a reality beyond anyone's expectations. And it would be ready to show the world almost immediately.

McDaniel has registered this as: http://murraycountyveteransmuseum.com and he and Frankel are making a few enhancements to the prototype. The actual museum in cyberspace will be available starting in May 2019.

McDaniel wants all honorably discharged Veterans of Murray County, Georgia to check the lists of veterans from the era in which they served and, if their name is not already on the appropriate list, they should email the details so they can be added. These lists are believed to be the most comprehensive available but they definitely do not include every military veterans from Murray County.