Joycee Wong is Curator at Wells Fargo's San Francisco History Museum. Today, she tells us about yesterday's Open House event there. (CR)
On Thursday, July 9, hundreds of museum visitors attended and enjoyed our Family Open House.
Yelps of laughter and surprise were heard throughout the day as visitors climbed aboard "Herbie," a simulated stagecoach ride.
Inside Herbie, they listened to a traveler's tale of his stagecoach journey in the 1860s, while viewing passing scenes helped them imagine a 3-week journey inside a stagecoach, crammed with eight other passengers. Little tots loved our Kiddie Ride, or pretended to be daring drivers on our model stagecoach.
For this Open House, we offered several unique ways to teach history hands-on. One amazingly popular special activity is writing and sending a letter to family via "stagecoach time." Visitors handwrite a note on old-fashioned stationery, and then our museum staff sends it in the time it would have taken that letter to arrive back in the 1850s! (Courtesy the United States Postal Service 
since stagecoaches are no longer available to deliver mail!)
For those impatient folks, who can't wait that long, another hands-on history is "texting" the old fashioned way: Using Morse Code on our working telegraphs to send an "instant message" the way pioneers did!
Gold Rush "Argonauts" sacrificed creature comforts and endured a grueling trip to the exciting adventure that awaited them in that distant land called California.
This especially hit home at our "Pack for a Stagecoach Journey" special activity, where you have the chance to imagine yourself preparing for your own stagecoach journey.
We had a large table with an old-fashioned suitcase, with various clothing and household items laid out. Visitors stepped back in time to decide what items they would bring for their journey out West — from vintage clothes to old books, from cookware to toys. The suitcase which was placed on an antique scale, and packers had to limit their belongings to 25 pounds in weight — the standard luggage restriction for Wells Fargo stagecoach passengers!
While some families were busy trying these simulated experiences of the Old West, others enjoyed some of the popular museum offerings, such as completing a Historic Map Treasure Hunt to earn a souvenir prize. Many played the "be-your-own-detective" game in our special exhibition about tracking down stagecoach robbers.
Seeing so many people from all ages and backgrounds engaging in the attractions was definitely a highlight at Headquarters this week. And since all 9 of our Wells Fargo history museums are free and open to the public, why not include a visit of your own next time you're in one of these locations?
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