The annual Selma Pilgrimage got off to a bustling start Friday morning, and event organizer Candi Duncan said she hopes the trend continues Saturday.

“It was a beautiful day [Friday] and we would just love to have busloads of people from Selma come out and support us Saturday as well,” Duncan said. “We have a lot of houses that are on the tour that we’ve never had before.”

Along with new additions, this year’s pilgrimage features tours of the Vaughan-Smitherman Museum, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the Old Depot Museum and the Sturdivant Hall. Duncan said she thought members of the public would also enjoy looks inside the Tin Man’s Art Gallery and the Wooten Law Firm.

“We have the Wooten Law Office, that is new to the tour this year, and it’s an interesting reuse project they have done there,” Duncan said. “That’s real interesting for people to see how they can take a building they might not want to live in and could use it as an office and still enjoy the architectural features that are there.”

Duncan said the number of houses that are close to each other this year is something several visitors commented on Friday.

“We have a lot of people who like to get out and walk to the tour, and the weather will just be great for that this year because the people are in real close proximity to each other,” Duncan said.

Alabaster resident Debora Acton toured several of the locations Friday and said walking through some of Selma’s oldest homes was something she had wanted to do for years.

“I’ve been coming to Selma since my husband and I were married 41 years ago, and my father-in-law lived down here, and we always said we wanted to walk through these houses, and today is the first day I’ve been able to do it,” Acton said. “There have been little things I’ve loved as each house today. I love the architecture here; the big doorways and trim molding you find in these old buildings.”

Along with the houses and museums that were open to the public Friday, Saturday’s Pilgrimage calendar includes tours of historic Kenan’s Mill from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Old Live Oak Cemetery from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., as well as the wet paint sale, which will feature works created by 25 plein air artists during their 2-day stay in Selma.

The wet paint sale is scheduled to take place from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at the Selma Art Guild’s gallery, located at 508 Selma Avenue.

Birmingham resident and plein air painter Amy Peterson was in Selma Friday and had set up her easel on the north side of the Vaughan-Smitherman Museum in the early afternoon to work on an oil painting of the building while two Pilgrimage hostesses laughed in the yard.

“I don’t normally paint buildings, myself, but it’s hard to walk past these buildings and not want to paint them,” Peterson said. “I love being able to paint while I’m outside, so this is really combining two things I love.”

Additional information about the Pilgrimage and ticket prices can be found online at SelmaPilgrimage.com, or at the Vaughan-Smitherman Museum, located at 109 Union St., between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Saturday.