Springfield Trip - New Salem

This was my favorite part of our whole Springfield trip. While I was never into history when I was in school, I've become more interested in it now that I'm an adult. I love seeing and reading how people lived in the past. It really makes you appreciate what we have now. Wouldn't it be awesome to go back here back for a day or two to see what it was really like back then?

The kids outside of the visitor center.

Once you leave the visitor center and head down a now paved road, you enter the small town and feel like you've been transported back in time. There is a road that winds on down with cabins on each side, most of which you can walk right up to the doors and see inside where it looks like they've been untouched by time.

The kids sitting on the back porch of the first cabin we explored.

We couldn't have picked a more beautiful time of year to visit.

Ryan was excited to see how kids his age went to school back then...

...and immediately began pretending he was the teacher. He could have played here all day.




Families lived in a one or two room cabin with a separate out building as their bathroom. All of the cabins had huge fireplaces to keep them warm in the colder months.



The town doctor's cabin.


The kids in front of the tavern. I would have thought that this was a bar until the lady at the visitor center explained to us that a tavern back then was more like a hotel. She explained that unmarried men didn't live alone. They either stayed at the tavern or with a family simply because they couldn't take care of themselves. (A-hem!) They apparently needed a woman to cook for them, make their clothes and just plain do everything for them. (Any men out there reading this right now?)

We took pictures of all of the cabins, including inside of them, but I won't bore you with all of those. Towards the end of the town a stair case (120+ steps) now take you down the path that leads to the towns Wood Mill. Going down was fun...

...but going up was a different story.



Even the kids needed to sit down when we got back up to the top.


The scenery on our walk back to the front of the town.


And look - they had duplexes back then! Two different families lived on each side of these cabins. Hope they liked their neighbors.


That's it for our Springfield trip. I'll have more pictures over at Flickr soon.