Log Cabin Village is a living history museum in Fort Worth, TX, devoted to the preservation of Texas heritage. Each of the 1800s structures, furnished with authentic artifacts, provides a vivid look at life in the nineteenth century frontier. The exhibits include a water-powered gristmill, a one-room schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop, an herb garden, and several log home settings. Historical interpreters depict the lifestyle of Texans in the mid to late 1800s.
Hey! Remember last week when we told you about Donny Cox, the awesome guy with the pinhole camera? Well today he stopped back by with a couple of images from his photo session. Aren't they great? You may recognize Mr. Cox's "model" as none other than our own Michael Garrett.
As an aside, you'll notice that Jack the Scarecrow is back to work after taking the summer off. We offered him a meal in exchange for his service, but he replied, "no thanks...I'm stuffed."
I was speaking with a fantastic adult attending one of our programs this morning, when she mentioned that she and her children visit Log Cabin Village many times a year. She jokingly said, "y'all need a season pass!" She was delighted when I told her that we DID offer a family membership...and that the cost was minimal!
It occurred to me that perhaps even some of our best and most frequent guests don't realize that we do offer incredible opportunities to help support the Village with great rewards in return. And so here I am, highlighting the fabulous membership program offered by our friends' group. We hope that you'll continue to be our friend also!
BECOME A FRIEND OF THE VILLAGE
The Log Cabin Heritage Foundation is a 501 (c)(3), non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to serve as a support group for Log Cabin Village. Their fundraising provides assistance for the Village’s preservation and education programs.
You can help us! By becoming a Friend of the Village, you are not only helping preserve the region’s pioneer history, but you are also receiving the great benefits outlined below. Take time to join now!
All members receive 10% gift shop discount and free admission.
Membership categories:
Student--$10 —Free admission for one person for one year.
Individual--$25 —Free admission for two people for one year.
Family--$45 —Free admission for 2 adults & 4 children for one year.
Pioneer--$100 —Previous benefits plus 4 guest passes for one year.
Settler--$250 —Previous benefits plus 8 guest passes for one year.
Merchant--$500 —Previous benefits plus 12 guest passes for one year.
Lifetime--$1000 —Previous benefits plus 16 guest passes per year.
Check out the October edition of the Lone Star Leather Crafters' newsletter to see the amazing accomplishments of our tooling friends! Oh yeah...we're in there too.
#24893. You unexpectedly get to meet the most amazing and interesting people!
Today we were fortunate enough to have local photographic enthusiast Donny Cox visit us with his pinhole camera. He's outside taking some shots as we speak, and he's even volunteered to share some with us once they're developed!
Hopefully someday we can get a group shot of "the Village People" (our staff) using technology that would have been available during the 19th century. How appropriate!
The photos are of Mr. Cox's camera (and Mr. Cox's hands).
Hey! Check out our awesome director, Kelli Pickard, in this series trailer! If the television show is picked up by a network, Log Cabin Village will be featured in one of the episodes. Here is the video and press release from Media 13, the production company responsible for this exciting new series. Stay tuned!
DALLAS, TX -- In 2010, Media 13 will be celebrating the power of museums as repositories of cultural capital with a major twelve-part documentary series entitled Museums of the Heartland.
Where are the stories? Since we were children, the words “once upon a time” have resonated deeply. Can you envision a world without story? Such is the appeal of Museums of the Heartland. It’s a series about the stories of our lives – and our culture – presented through museums.
Journeying, primarily, around Texas and Oklahoma, with an occasional foray into other heartland states, the half-hour show visits museums with recognizable names like Bob Bullock Texas State Museum in Austin and African American Museum at Fair Park. There are also other names – less recognizable – like the Toy and Action Figure Museum, East Texas Oil Museum, and Medicine Mound with stunning, unforgettable stories.
“Behind every museum is the energy of a passionate founder, a relentless Curator, hard-working docents and a spate of patrons who bring it all together. Museums—both large and small—are powerful protectors of the American experience because they protect and present the story of our Nation,” said Creator and Executive Producer, Lindell Singleton.
The pilot episode features the Texas Heritage Museum of Hillsboro, Texas. “This museum is remarkable,” said Singleton. “The experience struck me because it is expansive, yet intensely personal. The exhibits capture the stories of our wars, but present them only through the eyes of Texans. This really was the ideal choice for the pilot.”
John Versluis, Executive Director at Texas Heritage Museum offers this: "Museums are more than repositories of information and interesting artifacts, but instead a collective environment where cultures and generations meet on equal footing to share knowledge and new experiences. Museums of the Heartland will encourage visitorship. And, that could be across the city, the neighborhood, or down the Interstate."
About the Production Company
Media 13 is an industry-leading creative firm that leverages its unrivaled reach and access to create and produce compelling content across all its divisions: Narrative Filmmaking, Integrated Long Form Content, Commercials, Music Video and Broadcast Television. Visionary director, King Hollis, formed Media 13 in 2005. Widely acknowledge for establishing the 'next level' in Texas independent film production, Hollis' body of work has redefined excellence across multiple genres.
In launching the firm, Hollis has blended a collaboration of business and creative minds with a view toward developing branded content with a purpose. The core of Media 13 blends unique talents and a distinct, compelling vision for the future of creative content.
The team has established, long-standing partnerships with television and theatrical distributors, advertising agencies and corporate marketing entities. This nexus allows Media 13 to extend its reach across industries to exercise its capacity to find solutions for any project.
Media 13 finds creative production solutions while orchestrating the development, production and distribution of quality programming through existing and emerging channels.
Media 13’s groundbreaking documentary, “History of the Red River Rivalry” debuted in October 2009 on Fox Television. In 2008, the Company produced “The Split" for network television. In early 2010, Media 13 will release the anticipated reality series "Solo: I Dream of flight."
The power of moving images is the lingua franca of visual storytelling. Media 13 harnesses this power to uncover real solutions for you.
You know, even though our name isn't "Herb Garden Village," there is a special place on our grounds that is pretty important to us. Since 1992, Log Cabin Village has partnered with the Greater Fort Worth Herb Society (GFWHS) to provide an additional place of respite and education here on our beautiful wooded grounds.
The GFWHS has taken their job very seriously. Year after year they donate hundreds of volunteer hours planning, cultivating, harvesting, and maintaining our herb garden. They research to find native and historically accurate species. They design their work with the Village's needs first and foremost in their mind. And they do it all quietly behind the scenes, often arriving before we open to the public, working diligently, then slipping out (let me put to rest right now the notion that we consider them garden elves...or gnomes).
We'd like to take this opportunity, once again, to thank them for all the hard work they do to help keep our garden looking beautiful and peaceful. Once you view the photos, we think you'll agree that they do a wonderful job!
Just a reminder: we have an event coming up on Saturday from 1-4 p.m.! Winnow wheat, shell and grind corn, make a bean bracelet and more! Cost is regular Village admission plus a $2 craft fee for the bracelet. We hope to see you here!
Log Cabin Village is proud to now have an artifact on loan to the Tarrant County Historical Commission for their 1895 Room Gallery History Museum. Since one of the current exhibits is specifically about the original Fort Worth, founded in 1849, the hardwood timber corner post from the fort is a perfect addition!
Other exciting, new exhibits at the 1895 Room include:
The Gebert Collection of Phillipine Insurrection Memorabilia from The Spanish-American War, 1899 (loaned by the Marvin and Betty Wilson family)
Founding Fathers--Freemasonry in Tarrant County (loaned by Fort Worth Lodge No. 148, Masonic Library and Museum)
The Peak Rocking Chair, 1853 (loaned by The Dallas Historical Society)
Restored Spring Palace Painting by Orin McCormick, 1889 (loaned by The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Special Collections; donation for painting restoration provided by the Tarrant County Historical Society).
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thanks to all of you, we've been nominated for Metroplex Baby's "Best of the Metroplex Family Choice Awards" in the category "Best Historical Attraction."
We still need your help, however. If you are in the Metroplex, could you please go and vote for us? We need your help! Please click the button below to vote. And please share this with your friends!
I subscribe to an interesting e-newsletter called NHEC Enews. It not only offers valuable tidbits about current trends in education, but also offers great primary source material, strategies for teaching history, and highlights recent research in the field of history education.
The most recent issue featured a great article on the grammar of history textbooks. I don't know about you, but I was in college before I truly examined the role that perspective played in history. I always incorrectly assumed that what my textbook said was absolute fact, when the words were actually filtered through the lens of someone's viewpoint. Call it naivety, call it immaturity...but it wasn't until I was about nineteen years old that a lightbulb went off in my head: History books (and textbooks) are written by PEOPLE--people with opinions, people with biases, people with good intentions but occasional misinformation. As historians, our jobs are to process the information we receive, separate fact from opinion, and recognize that no one account will tell the entire truth simply because it is only one person's (or team's) truth.
Here's a fictitious example illustrating the power of perspective and word choice:
1. The Natives rode in on their horses, whooping and hollering with war cries, and attacked the settlers as they slept peacefully.
2. The Native Americans swiftly moved into the settlers' camp at nightfall, hoping to avenge tribal members murdered the night before.
3. The Indians snuck into the settlers' camp late at night. This was the best time to get horses without disturbing the sleeping pioneers and forcing a confrontation.
All three sentences offer different word choices and perspectives about motivation. Words evoke emotion, indicate power, and represent clear decisions made by the author as to how the historical material is related. One can never completely escape bias--every historian has it (even you :) ). The best we can hope to do is keep an open mind, explore a variety of sources, and recognize that all history is written by humans with human fallibility.
With all that in mind, here are a couple of great articles about the use of language analysis to help make meaning out of (often difficult to read) history textbooks:
As an aside, you'll notice that Jack the Scarecrow is back to work after taking the summer off. We offered him a meal in exchange for his service, but he replied, "no thanks...I'm stuffed." 
Log Cabin Village is proud to now have an artifact on loan to the Tarrant County Historical Commission for their 1895 Room Gallery History Museum. Since one of the current exhibits is specifically about the original Fort Worth, founded in 1849, the hardwood timber corner post from the fort is a perfect addition!
