On one of my jaunts to explore local Texas history I stopped at the Heritage Village Museum in Woodville, Texas. From the outside I could see some old historic buildings. However, the inside of the museum and the exhibits which walked me through life in east Texas during the nineteenth and early twentieth century surprised me. From the 1920’s homemade still to the 1830’s copper bathtub in the back of the barbershop, the exhibits took the visitor through a walk back in time. Curators deftly created a rather complete town that distilled overlap of the time and technologies throughout the century and half history of the region.
Various building such as the candle makers lodge, the spinning and weaving building, and the large pole barn are used for demonstrations, special events, and weekend activities celebrated in Woodville. But the other buildings were provided the visitor with a close-up acquaintance with the realities of early town life. Just a smattering of the thirty-eight buildings include a turn-of-the century newspaper office with the complete press set-up, nineteenth century doctor and dentist offices, a seamstress shop which operated from 1875 to 1885, the obligatory one room school house, an 1866 family cabin, a railroad depot from 1890, a real post office taken from Pluck, Texas, and a chair factory which produced furniture until 1964.
Two of the most interesting parts of the exhibit were the buggy barn and the tool shed. Standing next to each of the twenty-two vehicles housed in the barn made me very glad I didn’t have to shinny up into the seats to ride into town on the dirt and rutted roads. The tool shed housed a great deal of hand tools used for woodworking and construction of buildings and furniture. The adjacent industrial area housed a fascinating human-powered leather sewing used to make or repair harnesses, bridles, and work on the upholstery for carriages and wagons.
I recommend to anyone interested in the nineteenth century history and artifacts take a trip to the Heritage Village Museum in Woodville, Texas and spend a day. www.heritage-village.org (409) 283-2272
The post A Walk Back in Time first appeared on HHRW.
