Yolo County Historical Society, Spring Lakes School, and Hattie Weber Museum [CA]

Description

The Yolo County Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Yolo County, California. To this end, the society operates the Spring Lakes School and the Hattie Weber Museum. The school is used to introduce students to education and the school experience circa 1890. The Hattie Weber Museum presents the local history of Davis, California and the surrounding areas. The museum is named after Davisville's first paid librarian, who began her career in 1906.

The society offers educational programs for students in the Spring Lakes School, and exhibits and school tours in the Hattie Weber Museum.

Hazelwood Historic House Museum [WI]

Description

The Hazelwood Historic House Museum is a Greek Revival residence furnished in the 1880 through 1899 Victorian styles. Home owner Morgan L. Martin (1805-1887) served as state convention president at the time the Wisconsin state constitution was drafted.

The museum offers house tours and neighborhood tours. Reservations are required for groups of 10 or more. Tour options include added refreshments.

Floyd County Museum [IA]

Description

The Floyd County Museum presents historical and modern agricultural and industrial prairie life in Floyd County, Iowa. Highlights include tractors; 19th-century tools; and artifacts related to women's suffrage leader Carrie Lane Chapman Catt (1859-1947), founder of the League of Women Voters. Period rooms include a circa 1900 drug store setting and a country schoolroom. The collection focuses on the years 1850 through 1950. The museum is located within a historical laboratory building. Charles City, where the museum is located, is best know as the site of the first gasoline-powered tractors.

The museum offers exhibits and period rooms.

Filson Historical Society, Ferguson Mansion, and Museum [KY]

Description

The Filson Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. The society's offices are located within the 1905 Beaux Arts Ferguson Mansion. A museum is located within the carriage house. Collection highlights include the largest number of antebellum portraits in Kentucky; Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, family artifacts; and Shaker artifacts. Exhibit topics include Kentucky pioneers, Shaker life, slave life, and the Civil War. The society also operates a library, containing more than 50,000 volumes.

The society offers period rooms, exhibits, tours of the mansion and museum for students, traveling trunks, non-circulating research library access, and research assistance. A daily fee is charged for research library access. Payment is required for research conducted on request. Please call ahead if you wish to use the library. Reservations are required for student tours.

Fort Stevens State Historical Site [OR]

Description

The 3,700-acre Fort Stevens State Historical Site commemorates Fort Stevens, one of three forts created to defend the harbor near the mouth of the Columbia River. The fort remained an active military site between the Civil War and World War II. The grounds also include a historic shipwreck, a gun battery and World War II command center, a museum of the fort's history, and enclosed Civil War earthworks.

The site offers exhibits, nine miles of bicycle trails, six miles of hiking trails, outdoor activities, and a picnic area. During the summer, the site also offers blacksmithing demonstrations, 90-minute tours of the gun batteries, and truck tours of the fortifications.

Belle of Louisville [KY]

Description

The Belle of Louisville site operates two vessels—the 1914 steamboat Belle of Louisville and the 1963 riverboat Spirit of Jefferson. Over the course of her history, the Belle of Louisville has served as a passenger ferry, excursion vessel, and World War II oil barge mover and troop nightclub. She is the oldest operating river steamboat. The Spirit of Jefferson has always been an excursion vessel.

The site offers cruises, curriculum-based sight-seeing excursions for students, and outreach programs for students. Field trips are available during the month of May, and are designed for kindergarten through eighth grade.

Byers-Evans House Museum [CO]

Description

Visitors to the house enter one of Denver's great historic homes, built in 1883 by Rocky Mountain News publisher Williams Byers and sold in 1889 to the family of William Gray Evans, an officer of the Denver Tramway Company. The museum also screens a short film featuring the careers of these two pioneer Denver families and the city they built.

The house offers a short film, exhibits, tours, and educational programs.

Douglas County Historical Society, Museum, and Country School [SD]

Description

The society's museum includes three buildings. The central building is located on the grounds of the Douglas County Courthouse in Armour and originally housed the offices of auditor and register of deeds in 1902. This building was placed on the National Register of Historic Sites in 1976; and exhibits museum collections including clothing, household items, farm tools, office equipment, American Indian artifacts, military items, photographs, and other memorabilia unique to the Douglas County area. In 1981, the Society moved an 1884 country school to county property just east of the museum. It still contains some of its original furnishings along with other school items. Each spring, all second graders in Douglas County are invited to attend "School Days" in the Country School. The third building, known as the "Railroad House," was added in 1988 and is furnished and decorated in the period of the early 1900s. Furnishings include items that were already owned by the museum, as well as items donated and loaned to complete decoration.

The museums offer exhibits and tours.

East Lyme Historical Society and Museums [CT]

Description

The East Lyme Historical Society operates the circa 1805 Little Boston Schoolhouse and circa 1660 Thomas Lee House. The latter is listed separately within this database. The schoolhouse remained in use through 1922, and has now been restored to its early 20th-century appearance. A barn with historical exhibits is located nearby.

The society offers a colonial day for fourth grade students, lectures, period rooms, exhibits, and picnic tables. The sites are open June through Labor Day, although tours may be arranged for other times of the year.