Gem County Historical Society and Historical Village Museum [ID]

Description

The Gem County Historical Society of Gem County, ID operates the Historical Village Museum. The museum complex contains a museum of the history of Emmett, ID; the circa 1900 cottage of the fifth governor of Idaho (1901-1903), Frank W. Hunt; the Little Red Schoolhouse; the Bunkhouse; and the Blacksmith Shop. The Hunt cottage contains its original furnishings. The Bunkhouse presents information on indigenous animal species and the local cattle and sheep industries. Topics addressed in the local history museum include Native American life, irrigation, the fruit industry, settlers, trappers, and miners. Collection highlights include a "coyote gun" and a broom maker dating to the 1880s.

The society offers exhibits, period rooms, and presentations and tours for students.

Vicksburg Historical Society and Historic Village[MI]

Description

The Vicksburg Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of the greater Vicksburg area, MI. To this end, the society operates a historic village museum, consisting of a caboose, print shop, 1904 depot, express office, farmhouse, barn, gazebo, schoolhouse, and township hall.

The society offers exhibits, period rooms, and demonstrations. The village is closed January through April. Visitation is by appointment only.

Nineteenth Century Willowbrook Village [ME]

Description

Nineteenth Century Willowbrook Village offers the opportunity for visitors to immerse themselves in 19th-century daily life. Sights include two historic houses; two historic barns; a reproduction schoolhouse and bandstand; an 1894 carousel; an 1849 Concord stagecoach; a 1945 multi-wing aircraft; and blacksmith, broom maker, cooper, harness maker, printer, woodworker, wheelwright, canoe building, ice harvesting, bicycle shop, machine shop, maple-sugaring, and cobbler displays.

The village offers exhibits, period rooms, group tours, guided student tours, curriculum-based student programs, outreach programs for students, picnic tables, and a cafe. Student tours may be scheduled for May through October. Educational programs are only available in May and June. Approximately 50 percent of the site is wheelchair accessible.

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden [NY]

Description

Visitors to the Museum can step back in time and take a guided tour through the hotel's eight fully furnished period rooms. Constructed in 1799 as a carriage house and converted into a hotel in 1826, the Museum transports the visitor back to the Mount Vernon Hotel, a country escape for New Yorkers living in the crowded city at the southern tip of Manhattan.

The museum offers tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Colonial Williamsburg [VA]

Description

Colonial Williamsburg is the world's single largest living history museum. It consists of the reconstructed 18th-century British outpost of Williamsburg, VA. Through costumed interpreters and structures furnished to period, the museum shares the story of America and its people—Native American, African American, Caucasian, enslaved, indentured, and free—circa 1699 through 1780. The historic area includes political and residential sites, trade skill settings, a plantation, gardens, and animal breeds of circa 200 years ago. Museums on site include the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.

The site offers exhibits, period rooms, living history interpreters, demonstrations, walking tours, dramatic performances, military exercises, fife and drum parades, ghost walks, mock witch trials, films, lectures, music programs, reenactments, a teacher institute in early American history, children's activities, curriculum-based tours for students, museum tours, conferences, forums, workshops, concession stands, and several dining locations with period-inspired food. The website offers audio tours, a virtual tour, virtual exhibits, information on historical structures and people, information on aspects of daily life, recipes, electronic field trips, lesson plans, teaching resources for purchase, slide shows, videos, audio clips, a daily vocabulary feature, podcasts, blogs, activities and games, and journal excerpts

Mammoth Spring State Park [AR]

Description

Mammoth Spring, the 10th largest spring in the world, and a National Natural Landmark, flows nine million gallons of water each hour. Following the Civil War, this immense water source attracted industrialists who built a gristmill, and later, a dam here. Next, the investors opened large roller mills and a shoe factory. Soon after, the railroad arrived. Still standing near the spring is the charming 1886 Frisco Depot. At the dam, you can walk through the 1925 power plant that brought electricity to the region long before most other rural areas.

The site offers short films, exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Cornwall Iron Furnace [PA]

Description

Cornwall Furnace is a unique survivor of the early American iron industry. Originally built by Peter Grubb in 1742, the furnace underwent extensive renovations in 1856–57 under its subsequent owners, the Coleman family, and closed in 1883. It is this mid-19th-century ironmaking complex which survives today. At Cornwall, furnace, blast equipment, and related buildings still stand as they did over a century ago. Here visitors can explore the rambling Gothic Revival buildings where cannons, stoves, and pig iron were cast, and where men labored day and night to satisfy the furnace's appetite for charcoal, limestone, and iron ore.

The site offers a short film, exhibits, tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Ogeechee Canal Museum & Nature Center

Description

The Ogeechee Canal Museum and Nature Center showcases a 19th century Southern canal built in 1930. The canal was an important mean of transporting lumber, cotton, rice, bricks, guano, naval stores, and peaches until the advent of the railroad in America.

The site offers guided trail walks that focus on canal history, ecology, or wildlife. Living history programs on canal workers or 19th century schooling are also offered. Two hands-on Outdoor Classroom programs are available that teach about canal archeology and construction.

Willard House and Clock Museum [MA]

Description

The Willard House and Clock Museum is housed in the original 1718 home of clockmaker Joseph Willard. Willard's descendents went on to become some of America's most famous clockmakers and the museum houses many original creations of the family.

Upon making reservations, groups may visit the museum and tour for approx. an hour for a small fee.

North West Company Fur Post [MN]

Description

The North West Company Fur Post is a living history museum interpreting fur trading in the year 1804. That year, a trader from the North West Company erected a winter trading post on site. From there he conducted business with the Ojibwe before moving on again in late April. Topics addressed include Ojibwe culture, changes in Ojibwe culture which occurred after European contact, European barter systems, the fur trade and the global economy, trader life, women in the fur trade, communication between cultures, and archaeology. As the site is a reconstruction, it permits visitors a hands-on experience.

The post offers interactive exhibits, living history interpreters, period skill demonstrations, day camps, guided group tours, field trip programs, nature trails, interpretive signs, canoeing opportunities, and a picnic shelter. Field trips include a guided tour, an educational game, a fire making demonstration, and a craft activity. Canoes are not available on site. The website offers history articles.