MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Nearly a year after the death of Harper Lee, a group in south Alabama hopes to develop new attractions and bring more tourists to the novelist’s hometown of Monroeville, which helped inspire both To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman.

Working with Lee’s attorney Tonja Carter and others, local businessman and philanthropist George Landegger has purchased the 1909 bank building that housed the one-time office of Lee’s father A.C. Lee – who served as the model for attorney Atticus Finch in both books.

Organizers plan to renovate the 6,000-square-foot building and convert it into a museum in Monroeville, where Lee died in February 2016. Other attractions could be added later, including renovations of historic structures and reproductions of places mentioned in the books. A museum in the old county courthouse already prominently features Lee and author Truman Capote, childhood friend of Lee.

Monroeville served as Lee’s model for fictional Macomb in both Mockingbird, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and Watchman, which Lee actually wrote first but released decades later in 2015.
___

By JAY REEVES, Associated Press

Copyright 2016 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-12-24-16 1544GMT