HANDS-ON HISTORY
West Overton and Fort Allen team up with dual events
Aaron Hollis strolled the short distance between West Overton Village & Museum, where he is co-executive director, and Fort Allen Antique Farm Equipment Association, chatting about the two entities’ upcoming event collaboration.
On July 15-16, West Overton will host its summer DIY History weekend, while Fort Allen will host its Ice Cream Summer Fun Festival.
Though located within walking distance of each other in East Huntingdon, Westmoreland County, the two have not jointly held events for several years. This year the dates and hours — 9 a.m.-5 p.m. both days — worked out and the two organizations saw an opportunity to work together.
Each will offer free admission, with shuttles available to move visitors between the facilities honoring local farming and industrialization history.
“People are always looking for things to do with their families,” Hollis said.
He sees visitors to the dual events sharing a day and making memories together, with some generations reminiscing and others learning about how things used to be.
West Overton began offering DIY History events right before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
“It still feels like a new program. We are always adding content,” Hollis said. “The concept was an idea I had several years ago. I think it’s a museum’s job to make history exciting.”
DIY History activities include not only learning about how butter was churned, but also also getting the chance to make butter.
“Laundry is a favorite with kids. They get to get wet,” Hollis said, laughing.
They learn about wash boards, hand-operated agitatorand wringer washers and try their hand at laborious methods that once seemed technologically advanced.
“They are seeing industrialization with their eyes,” he said.
Children will have the chance to play games popular in the 19th century such as Graces, which involves tossing and catching beribboned hoops with dowel rods, and quoits, a type of ring toss.
Additional planned activities include making herbinfused soaps, using a soap base, and making candles while learning about the history of lighting.
The museum’s current exhibition, “Forging Ahead and Falling Behind,” also will be open. The exhibition recreates the lives of people who lived and worked at the village, and shows how their work — from housekeeping to coal mining — was impacted as modern technology evolved.
People can learn about the “pros and cons of industry,” Hollis said, and how those same changes still impact people’s lives today.
A reproduction of a general store — built primarily from the site’s former store ledger — shows visitors items that were sold at the village. Stools for smaller visitors, drawers of spices to see and smell and “please touch” stickers offer sensory opportunities.
Next door, visitors to Fort Allen can watch blacksmiths at work and see demonstrations of shingle and saw mills. A tractor pull is planned for July 15.
“We demonstrate old equipment for farming and industry to show people how much harder it was, labor wise,” said Zane Lape, association president. “We want visitors to see how the equipment works, how they made the horseshoes, how they made the nails, how they made rope.”
Robert Hagins, an association director, said doors are open Thursday nights spring through fall for blacksmith lessons. Those attending can learn to make decorative hanging hooks and letter openers.
“It’s for people who like to get their hands dirty and make things,” he said.
Homemade ice cream and other food and beverages will be available for purchase at Fort Allen.
During the DIY History event, adults can visit West Overton’s Educational Distillery for rye whiskey samples, cocktails and bottle purchases.
West Overton recently celebrated is 95th anniversary, and its current exhibition has received an Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History.
It also is a recent recipient of a $100,000 Keystone Historic Preservation Grant from the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, with most of the funding likely to be put toward masonry repair, Hollis said.
He hopes learning more about the region’s earlier residents will spur visitors’ interest in history and preservation.
“We want there to be dinner table conversations, car ride home conversations, to get people thinking critically about how the changes that affected these people in the 19th century are still playing out today,” Hollis said.