Visiting Westville

We’ve been living in Columbus for five years now, and finally made our first trip to Historic Westville, “Georgia’s working 1850s town” yesterday – partly inspired by the fact that they were hosting a fall festival, complete with some bluegrass music by the Bibb City Ramblers. I wasn’t sure how much Will would appreciate a living history museum, but it turned out to be a perfect adventure for a 4-year-old.

Will and his friend Charlie enjoyed touring the historic homes, where they found the spinning wheels, the wells and the old fashioned cradles fascinating. “Can we go into another house?” they’d ask.

At one stop, we looked at a butter churn, which Will remembered learning about in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House in the Big Woods.” I hadn’t considered how the Wilder books had prepared Will to think about what life must have been like “in the olden days.”

We also sampled some ginger bread, cornbread biscuits and cane syrup juice – all concocted by costumed “townspeople” in their various old fashioned ways.

The boys, Owen included, enjoyed playing with the crude wooden toys of a pre-plastic, pre-battery era...

and communing with the farm animals.

Here’s a final photo by photographer Will: