Guest Blogger: Clayton is a writer, editor, and devoted family man. A proud husband, father, and grandfather, Clayton enjoys running and cycling in his spare time and is also devoted to supporting literacy and arts programs in his hometown of Worthington, Ohio. Clayton and his wife enjoy taking trips with their children and grandchildren, including a recent vacation in Perth, Australia. To learn more about Clayton, visit his website, Clay Writes.
Appalachia
By Muriel Miller Dressler
I am Appalachia. In my veins
Runs fierce mountain pride; the hill-fed streams
Of passion; and, stranger, you don’t know me!
You’ve analyzed my every move–you still
Go away shaking your head. I remain
Enigmatic.
These opening lines from Muriel Miller Dressler’s poem “Appalachia” are true in some ways. To people who don’t live there, Appalachia can feel remote, strange, perhaps even sad. But these feelings will be swept away like a leaf in a mountain stream after a visit to Heritage Farm Museum and Village. Nestled in a small valley outside of Huntington, West Virginia, Heritage Farm offers visitors a taste of Appalachian history and culture, fun and education for children and a variety of child-friendly activities.
Heritage Farm dates back to 1973, when avid antiquarians Mike and Henriella Perry moved from Huntington to a farmhouse just outside the city. The Perrys used a nearby barn to house their growing collection of antiques and artifacts. Everything they added to their collection – whether it was an old appliance, a piece of farm equipment, or a vintage motor vehicle – tied in with everyday life in Appalachia from the 19th century to the present. The Farm, which opened to the public in 2006, has added other attractions over the years, including a petting zoo, several museums, cabins that provide overnight accommodations, and authentic period structures that reflect Appalachia’s past. My wife and I have visited Heritage Farm three times, most recently for a weekend in mid-June with our children and grandchildren.
Heritage Farm Lodging
There are seven “inns” at the farm (one is actually a barn, another a caboose) with quaint-sounding names. On our first trip, my wife and I stayed with another couple at the Applebutter Inn. This time, we divided our extended family of 16 between the Strawberry and Blackberry Inns. Outside the latter was a small but well-maintained swimming pool with comfortable patio furniture around it. The rules for the pool were simple: no glass, food, running, or diving, and guests swim at their own risk.
The air-conditioned inns themselves are fairly spacious and have all the conveniences of modern living with the exception of television and computers. There are no landline telephones either, but in this age of cell phones, they aren’t likely to be missed. (Cell phone reception is generally good all around the Farm.)
Heritage Farm Petting Zoo
There is so much to see at Heritage Farm that it can be hard to decide what to see first. I would recommend the Petting Zoo as a good place to start, especially for families with children. Some of the zoo’s denizens, like Rainbow the Peacock, are not suitable for direct contact, but others like Moby Duck, Leonard the Turtle, Penelope Pig, Oreo the Rabbit, and Kit Kat the Goat are ready to make friends with visitors. These animals are used to being petted and are not startled when they feel the touch of human hands. Even so, there are volunteers who will bring the animals out of their pens and hold them still while children become better acquainted with them. An aluminum roof covers the petting zoo, so a rainstorm does not have to interrupt the fun.
Heritage Farm Museums
Once finished with the petting zoo, visitors frequently decide to make their way through the different museums at the Farm. There are no less than seven of them, each housed in a single building and each with a different theme. Four, in particular, will provide both fun and learning opportunities to children.
The Progress Museum highlights inventions, communication devices, and consumer goods that have improved the daily lives of Appalachians since the mid-19th Century. A series of vignettes using mannequins shows the changes that one might see in an Appalachian kitchen from one generation to the next. The Progress Museum also has a 1920s diner, a miniature carnival made out of tin scraps, and an elaborate model railroad with little locomotives chugging around hills and through tunnels.
The Bowes Doll and Carriage Museum gives visitors much more than just a collection of figurines. The beautifully crafted dolls, which Don and Connie Bowes gifted to the museum, are presented in realistic household surroundings. Look through one window, and see dolls wearing period outfits, seated at a table in an ornate dining room. Look through another and see them playing with their toys in a bedroom complete with a dresser, canopied bed, and pictures on the wall. There are outdoor scenes, too, where dolls stroll down the street and push baby carriages holding dolls of their own.
What was it like to be a kid in Appalachia 100 years ago? Young visitors to Heritage Farm can find out in the Children’s Activity Museum. In this unique setting, children simulate churning butter, pumping water, collecting eggs, and even milking an artificial cow. And if the “work” wears them out, they can sit at a desk in a one-room Schoolhouse Museum and perhaps better appreciate the advantages they enjoy in a modern classroom.
The other museums, although perhaps more oriented to adults, also offer items of interest to children. The Transportation Museum, for example, has an array of old cars as well as an airplane suspended from the ceiling. For its part, the Industry Museum features a walk-through coal mine while the Heritage Museum has an old-time barbershop. We got to watch a shopkeeper sweep his floor with an early model vacuum cleaner in the Country Store Museum.
In addition to the museums, the Farm’s MakerSpace building offers young people a plethora of opportunities for hands-on learning. The MakerSpace is sponsored by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Here, kids and their parents can sit at a variety of tables and try crocheting, drawing, building with Legos, creating electrical circuits, and other self-guided activities. While they work, kids can learn American history from an enormous brightly colored mural that runs around the inside of the MakerSpace building. The mural chronicles key cultural and historical events in the U.S. from Pearl Harbor to 9/11 and presents images of key figures who, for better or worse, shaped American life over that time.
- Heritage Farm MakerSpace Hours: MakerSpace is open on Saturdays from May through December and on Wednesdays from June through September from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Heritage Farm Historic Buildings
Paralleling the museums are the Farm’s replicas of historic buildings. These include a blacksmith shop and a log church. At most of these places – and in the museums, too – volunteers are ready to answer questions and perform demonstrations. Visitors with good timing can see the blacksmith make a knife in his forge or watch a shopkeeper.
Heritage Farm – Six Simple Machines Discovery Zone
After the museums, the petting zoo, and the historic buildings, children might enjoy some less-structured activities. If so, they can head to the Six Simple Machines Discovery Zone, easily found by the windmill located in the middle. In this discovery zone, kids can perform simple tasks that will clarify the importance of pulleys, levers, inclined planes, and other simple machines. If kids need even more independence, they can grab some nets with handles at the Visitors Center and go hunting for minnows and crayfish in the creek that runs through the farm. It’s okay for these water critters to be caught and put in buckets – as long as they are returned to their habitat when the hunt is over.
At some point during their time at Heritage Farm, visitors might want to get a view of the farm’s outlying areas. If so, they should keep an eye out for Audy Perry and his tractor. Audy, the son of the Farm’s founders, will load people up in one of several wagons and haul them around the Farm’s perimeter. Among other things, they’ll cross a covered bridge and see some larger animals like Marco the Bison who aren’t part of the petting zoo. Be advised that this ride can get pretty bumpy sometimes, especially when the wagons rumble across the bridge. Expectant mothers may want to think twice before climbing on to a wagon. Be advised, too, that Audy may bombard visitors with a series of farm-related puns. So be ready to groan.
Heritage Farm Logistics
- Heritage Farm Hours: Heritage Farm hours vary by season. Consult their website when planning a visit.
- Heritage Farm Tickets: Heritage Farm admission costs $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $8 for children. Visitors two and under are free.
- Parking at Heritage Farm: Parking shouldn’t be a problem. There’s a large open-field lot just to the left of the main entrance. If that lot is full, more parking space is available at the western end of the farm.
- Dining at Heritage Farm: For dining, Heritage Farm Cafe is located in the Visitors Center. The cafe is open from 11-2, Monday through Saturday and offers an array of sandwiches, side dishes, and beverages at reasonable prices. One of their specialties is lemonade sweetened by brown sugar.
Before leaving Heritage Farm, visitors can comment on their experience in a journal that can be found near the entrance to their Inn. And as they leave, they may find Appalachia to no longer be an enigma, but rather an inviting place they will want to visit again. Heritage Farm Village and Museum is really a gateway to America’s rural past and much more.
