Yongwon Seowon

Yongwon Seowon enshrines Mun Wi (1554-1631), a local militia leader and man of letters during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s. The scholar Byeon Chang-hu was later added to the shrine as well, and the academy carried on the dual role of honoring past scholars and providing local education.

When the Japanese invasions broke out in 1592, Mun Wi raised a militia in Geochang, and his achievements earned him third-class merit-subject honors under the Seonmu Wonjong honors system. He's said to have kept company with prominent scholars of his era, including Ryu Seong-ryong.

The academy was torn down in 1868, the 6th year of King Gojong's reign, under Regent Heungseon Daewongun's order to abolish seowon academies. The academy itself was restored first in 1989, and the shrine followed in 1991, giving the site its present form.

The story of a local man of letters who took up the sword instead of the brush amid the chaos of war lives on here, carried forward through two separate rounds of restoration.