How does your garden grow?

Did you know that raised bed gardening was the method of choice for most kitchen gardeners in the mid-19th century? Neither did I until our newest historical interpreter, Pat, pointed it out. Like all of our interpreters, Pat brought with her a unique skill set dynamically suited to educating and inspiring our visitors. And as we do with all our interpreters, we set about figuring out how best to utilize (exploit) these skills to our advantage.

Pat is a Master Gardener and has devoted much of her life and time to educating children and adults about gardening. She researched 19th century gardens and developed the plan you currently see in progress. And so the Log Cabin Village raised bed garden is currently underway. Want to see our experiment unfold? Stay tuned...

Please click on the slideshow to start and to control the speed...

The legend of the corn husk doll...

Very soon we'll be featuring our Frontier Fall Fest event here at Log Cabin Village. We're very excited because in addition to a number of activities included with regular Village admission, visitors will have the chance to make copper bracelets with a Silversmyth for $5 (while supplies last) and corn husk dolls for $3.

Corn husk dolls are an interesting craft because they have roots in many different cultures. This is more than likely due to the common nature of people using available materials to create useful and/or delightful things. Although most commonly associated with Native American culture, corn husk dolls appear in the history of many of our white, black, and Latino ancestors as well. They are truly a cross-cultural historical toy!

Perhaps most famous is the Legend of the Corn Husk Doll cited frequently as deriving from Native American culture. While I haven't yet discovered a specific origin (or determined whether it is, indeed, a true Native American legend), it is a great story that reminds us all of the dangers of being vain and self-centered. Most sources indicate that the legend stems from the Iroquois Confederacy, of which Oneida and Seneca were parts. Here are a few different sources for the legend, with only slight variations in each. Enjoy!

The Legend of the Corn Husk Doll (from Illinois)

Legend of the Corn Husk Doll (from the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin)

Story of the Corn Husk Doll (Iroquois Tale from a Seneca woman)

Legend of the Corn Husk Doll (Iroquois Tale from Sister Sky)

Legend of the No Face Doll (Iroquois Museum)

Vlog Cabin Village!

Thanks to our friends over at Anchor Marketing and Design for this great vlog about the Village!

When something is right, but not right for us.

Our Mission
The purpose of Log Cabin Village is to educate the public through the collection, preservation and interpretation of artifacts, representative structures, and other items of social and cultural significance to Texas’ pioneer era (1840-1890).

Our Vision
Log Cabin Village aspires to build connections to 19th century Texas by providing educational opportunities and sensory experiences that are engaging, accurate, and as authentic as possible.

A mission statement is a tricky thing. Museums, non-profit agencies, and even corporations hire consultants, sponsor retreats, and read tea leaves to try and figure out their mission. How can you condense your life's work and purpose into one brief, often catchy, statement?

Why is it even important to do so?

Quite simply, mission statements provide a focus for your organization. Many well-intentioned efforts have failed because there was no clear direction behind which to rally. Museum staff members in particular utilize their mission statements as a driving force behind every operation they are involved in. From educational programming, collections (and collections policy), and exhibits to museum store merchandise, mission should be kept in mind at all times. And if it's not mission-related, then it shouldn't be part of your museum.

But what if the item's really cool? And rare? And historically relevant to your local community? What if you know a program's going to make a LOT of sorely needed revenue for your museum, even though it's not mission-related? What if the exhibit will attract record numbers of visitors in a time of economic turmoil?

These are poignant questions that each museum struggles with on a regular basis. Here at the Village, we tend to take a fairly traditional stance: if it ain't related to our mission, it ain't happening here.

But it's so sad when we have something like this...

Or this...

And we want to share it with the world.

But we're not a 20th century museum. We don't deal exclusively with Fort Worth history. In fact, we only have one structure from Fort Worth (originally North Fort Worth): the Marine School house. So unfortunately, these items should not be part of our collection (and shouldn't have been accepted as donations in the first place).

So now what? We will work to find a place for them, preferably (and ethically) in another local museum whose mission they DO fit.

And they will be home.

UPDATE: We are very excited to announce that the awesome fan will be going to the Leonard's Department Store Museum right here in Fort Worth! Yay!

Frontier Fall Fest...

Frontier Fall Fest will be here before you know it!


Frontier Fall Festival Flyer_LCV

Summer maintenance closure...

Dreaming of autumn...

Greetings all!


Just a reminder that we will be closing for our annual summer maintenance August 22nd-September 5. We will reopen at 9 a.m. on September 6.


Thanks to all of our supporters who have continued to visit despite this bewildering heat. We are so grateful for you!


See you in September!

It's hot. Real hot.

Dust devil near Childress, TX

As one of the hottest (thus far) summers in north Texas history continues to roll on, we continue to be amazed at the hardiness of both our staff and our visitors! The interpreters proudly demonstrate their craft and engage our guests without complaint. In turn, the visitors listen and participate eagerly despite the sometimes oppressive heat.

Y'all are the best!

Unfortunately Texas is also witnessing a severe drought. And even more unfortunate is the fact that drought is not new to Texas. Here's more from the Handbook of Texas online:

DROUGHTS. Droughts have been recorded as a problem in Texas since Spaniards explored the area. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca found a population of soil tillers near the site of present-day Presidio, where it had not rained for two years. Regarding the white man as a god, they begged him to tell the sky to rain. In 1720 a summer dry spell in Coahuila killed 3,500 of the 4,000 horses that the Marqués de Aguayo, governor of Texas, was prepared to bring to Texas. A drought in Central Texas dried up the San Gabriel River in 1756, forcing the abandonment of a settlement of missionaries and Indians. Stephen F. Austin's first colonists also were hurt by drought. In 1822 their initial food crop of corn died from lack of moisture.

Each decade since then has been marked by at least one period of severe drought. Associated with dry times are grasshopper plagues, brush and grass fires, sand and dust storms, crop failures and depression, livestock deaths, disease resulting from insufficient and impure drinking water, and migrations of citizens from parched territory. Information concerning pioneer-day droughts is sketchy because of the absence of official statistics; but data on some droughts, especially those during the nineteenth century, can be compiled from individual complaints recorded in newspapers, diaries, and memoirs. In 1883 Texas opened its western school lands, drawing thousands of immigrant farmers to the area. One of the worst droughts in Texas history occurred in 1884–86, causing most of the farmers to fail and to return to the East. In later years official detailed recordkeeping makes possible a better understanding of the geographical distribution of droughts. Drought occurs when an area receives, in a given year, less than 75 percent of its average rainfall. The number of drought years in each of ten geographical areas of Texas in the 100 years between 1892 and 1992 was as follows: Trans-Pecos, sixteen years; lower Rio Grande valley, seventeen; Edwards Plateau, seventeen; South Central, fifteen; Southern, fifteen; North Central, twelve; Upper Coast, thirteen; East Texas, ten; High Plains, ten; and Low Rolling Plains, eight.

There has been at least one serious drought in some part of the state every decade of the twentieth century. The most catastrophic one affected every part of the state in the first two thirds of the 1950s. It began in the late spring of 1949 in the lower valley, affected the western portions of the state by fall, and covered nearly all Texas by the summer of 1951. By the end of 1952 the water shortage was critical; Lake Dallas for instance held only 11 percent of its capacity. Spring rains in 1953 gave some brief respite to Northeast Texas. In the Trans-Pecos, however, only eight inches of rain fell the entire year of 1953, and the drought grew worse from 1954 to 1956. Streams only trickled or dried up completely. The drought ended abruptly in the spring of 1956 throughout Texas with slow soaking rains. There were several less severe and shorter droughts in the 1970s. Most were ended by rain from tropical storms. A massive heat wave in 1980 started a severe drought that blistered most of Texas during the early 1980s. This gradually worsened until it reached extreme proportions in the Pecos River valley during 1983. Even mesquite trees withered. It was ended in the western half of the state by the residue of a north Pacific cyclone, which moved across Mexico. The drought shifted eastward in 1984, inflicting hardship on central and southern Texas; some towns ran out of water and others enforced rationing. On occasion, attempts to make rain artificially have been instituted by both private individuals and public organizations, but these have met with little success. Constant improvement in moisture conservation and utilization, however, has aided Texans in their struggle with drought.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Roy Sylvan Dunn, "Drought in West Texas, 1890–1894," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 37 (1961). W. C. Holden, "West Texas Droughts," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 32 (October 1928). Vance Johnson, Heaven's Tableland: The Dust Bowl Story (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1947). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. J. W. Williams, "A Statistical Study of the Drought of 1886," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 21 (1945).

Roy Sylvan Dunn

As we dream of the mercury falling and non-sweat-soaked clothes, we revisit this blog entry discussing historic means of keeping cool. Enjoy!