The
farm-related site I visited was the American West Heritage Center. This is
located in Wellsville, UT off of Highway 89-91. The Heritage Center is a nonprofit
organization that provides an outside setting that furnishes a variety of
activities for participants to gain an understanding of what it might have been
like to live in the west from 1820-1920.
There were also vendors at this event. There was a booth for people to sign up to receive Winder Farms products, to look into banking with Mountain America Credit Union, to get faces painted, to learn about WIC, and a retailer. However, the majority of the vendors were food since the event ran all day and families might choose to eat at the event. The only booth that was farming-related was the Winder Farms as they are a Utah based farm company that provides goods to families wanting produce, dairy, and baked goods, delivered to their homes.
My
older 4 children have taken a field trip to this event when they were in
kindergarten, but this was my husband’s and mine’s first time visiting, along
with our youngest’s. The advertising and
word of mouth for this event was that the animals would be available to be
held by children, which I found to be accurate. My children were able to either pet or
hold: goats, pigs, sheep, goats, cows, ducks, chicks, rabbits, ponies, and baby
turtles. There was a lot of promotions for the event that highlighted the baby bears but while waiting in the line for the pony rides, another parent informed us that the bears are in a far corner and the line was set farther back, which made it hard to see the bears. This, and the length of the line helped us decide to bypass this exhibit. I felt the bears were the only misleading information about the event
because the commercials showed the bears up close.
Pigme goat 1 week old and Normal goat 1 day old
pigs 6 weeks old and cow 1 week old
milking cows and pony rides
The American West Heritage Center does have employees that work there daily but the majority of people helping at the event are volunteers, including youth. When I asked one volunteer, as 12 year old boy, what it took to become a volunteer, he said there was a day of training where they learned how to care for the animals. Another volunteer was in high school and he said his parents signed him up to help for the event without telling him. The third volunteer I questioned was a girl who helps at the center on a regular basis.
The baby
animals were definitely the highlight of the event, but if you are looking for
farming, it can be found. The walkway into the event is lined with farming equipment and more can be found in the historic tractor display. There was not any information listed about the equipment nor anyone nearby to ask questions about them.
Another piece of farm equipment was actually being demonstrated. There was a wood cutting machine: 1917 economy with a gasoline 7 horsepower engine, equivalent to a lawnmower. They buy a bundle of wood (seen in the background), cut it, and use it to fuel the cook stove in the farmhouse for about a month. The man would lay his wood down on a bar/shelf and then he pushed that away from him toward the blade, which would cut the wood. It reminded me of how older clothing looms worked.
The
farmhouse was a very realistic aspect of farming as they were original
buildings moved to the Heritage center. The volunteers working the farmhouse
gave me different information about the history of the building so I emailed Annalise
Christensen, who works at the Heritage Center, for more accurate information.
The farmhouse is meant to be interpreted as a 1917 farm site, yet it is really
two different homes put together. The original portion was a log cabin that was
built in the 1870’s in Smithfield, UT. This portion includes the parlor, parent’s
bedroom, and the two rooms above this section. This was brought to the Heritage
Center in 1976. In the 1990’s the rest of the farmhouse: kitchen, upstairs bedrooms,
and the back porch, were added by USU students majoring in living history and
they used traditional methods and materials. An interesting piece of
information is that the summer kitchen located behind this farmhouse is the
oldest building in Cache Valley.
Washing machine and Irons and a grinder
Above is a wood stove that still works and was used to bake cookies for people to eat while walking through the house, a telephone, and sewing machine.
a wood burning oven produced in 1896.
The bedrooms upstairs were very small and offered little privacy as there were no doors and a hallway barely big enough to walk through.
There
were also buildings nearby the farmhouse that are replicas of a root cellar
found in Hyde Park, UT along with a smoke house and an outhouse. There was also
a granary attached to the chicken coop which was moved from its original home
in Richmond back in 1976.
Another nearby building was a blacksmith shed where an older youth demonstrated how a hook can be made from a common modern nail by heating it up in a fire and pounding it with a hammer on a an anvil.
The day I went on my field trip was a little cold and towards the end there was snow falling. The weather did not discourage people though because families were still arriving as we were leaving and the next day when we drove past it was even busier. I saw families of all demographics and people of all ages. Grandparents brought or came with their grandchildren, moms or dads came with just their children and other families had both parents. This is an event that Cache Valley held yearly and is talked about frequently so it I feel it is a safe assumption to say that the majority of people in Cache Valley have attended the event at one time.
work cited: Annalise Christensen, email messages, April 8, 2015
.png){kind=logo}
