Fort Wayne History Museum

The kids and I went to visit the Fort Wayne History Museum.  Surprisingly there are lots of hands on activities and things to touch and see that are pretty exciting.  It's fun to learn a little bit about our city and the people who were the first ones to live here.  One of the most fun parts was this train exhibit.  It was made to look like a real train track and showed the map where the train traveled through the midwest.  The kids could dress up like real train conductors (but the costumes were the size of an adult, so it was pretty funny when Cooper put on the conductor's shirt and it went down to his ankles).  The kids put the map puzzle together multiple times and pushed the button on the train light.  On the floor was a lever where the kids could manually "change" the track to turn right or left.  They had a lot of fun pulling on this lever.  

In another room were old instruments.  I came across this old flute.  It's a wooden version from the 1890's!  I wonder if a wooden flute would sound the same as a silver one?  It was really cool for me to see it!  

Down in the basement of the History Museum is the original jail that Fort Wayne used to use many years ago.  Criminals would come and get locked up in this very building!  Now they have preserved it and turned it into a museum for people like us to come see.  There were about 8 different cells and each one had benches on the sides and a gutter next to the wall, probably for them to go to the bathroom in.  The kids couldn't believe that's where these bad guys had to live!  There were scribbles all over the walls from the original criminals who were angry to be there.  On the far side, they had 1 other cell that was for females.  It had a little bathroom stall in it, which was unique.  The museum put a mannequin in  one of the cells that looked soooo real!  At first we all were taken by surprise that there was someone locked in the cell!  It scared us, till we realized it was fake.  The boys were a little bit concerned at first that this was the jail, especially Cooper, and he kept asking me whether bad guys still came here.  So I reassured him that they don't, but that bad guys go to a newer jail somewhere else now and this is safe for us to come visit.  It was fun!