Here are just a few suggested rides when the Rug RATs are with you. Have a suggested site? . These places are less Anomalies and perhaps more fun, interesting as well as educational. So read up before you get there. You may be asked questions. Of course any RAT Site counts.
Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, FL More Info
Mel Fisher Museum, Key West, FL More Info
PLimouth Plantation, Plymouth, Massachusetts More Info
Louisa Mau Alcott Home Orchard House, Concord Massachusetts More Info
Intrepid Sea- Air Space Museum, New York, NY More Info
Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park, Tombstone, AZ More Info
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY More Info
Little House on the Praire ( Ingalls Home ) DeSmet , SD More Info
National Basketball Museum & Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts More Info
Steamtown National Historic Site, Scranton, PA More Info
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The place was so remote that when nineteenth-century writer Jules Verne needed a dot on the map for the site of a fictional moon launch he chose Cape Canaveral. Almost a century later the U.S. Defense Department picked the same place for its top secret missile center, and for almost the same reason: It was as out of the way as one could get. When the government quietly began buying up land here in the mid-1950s, the cape was scrub and sand, little changed from the time when Ponce de Leon first saw it in 1513. A tiny land boom during the 1920s had petered out. "Cape Canaveral a Desolate Site," read The New York Times headline when reporters were first shown the facility in 1958.
Within months, however, Cape Canaveral had turned into one of the most familiar datelines in the news. More than that, it had become the focus of national pride. The country was trying to rally from the shock of finding itself behind the Soviet Union in the space race. The 1957 launch of Sputnik, the first orbiting satellite, staggered America like few events in history. The country feared that Russian control of space would mean their domination on Earth. So Americans had a rooting interest in what they read about and saw at the cape. Television audiences grew familiar with the awesome sight of giant rockets blasting off in a shower of orange flame. We learned the argot of the astronauts. Phrases like "A-OK" and "all systems go" entered the language. Even a veteran newsman like Walter Cronkite could send the big birds up with a heartfelt "Go, baby, go."
Tourists flocked to nearby beaches to observe the historic launches. Alan Shepherd's suborbital ride in 1961 was followed a year later by John Glenn's flight into orbit. In 1969 man walked on the moon. Meanwhile, a Space Age boomtown took shape around the base, whole communities springing out of the ground to serve this high-tech installation.
Now the first flush of space exploration has passed and NASA must struggle for funding like any other federal agency. But the Kennedy Space Center is still one of the symbols of the century's second half. The entire cape was renamed for President John F. Kennedy a few weeks after his assassination. But it was changed back to Canaveral in 1972 upon local request, with the Kennedy designation limited to the space installation itself.
Much of the cape is now a national seashore, with a vast assortment of
protected wildlife within its boundaries. But most visitors to the area come to see the
Space Center. Tours of the complex begin at Spaceport USA, where tickets for two different
two-hour bus trips can be purchased. Areas are open to tourists depending on what
operations are in process at the center. (Complete descriptions are available the day of
your visit.) Spaceport USA also includes exhibits on the history of the space program,
moon rocks, an IMAX Theatre film that features footage shot from space, and displays on
the adjacent wildlife refuge. The Astronauts Memorial, a tribute to those who died while
serving in the space program, is nearby.
Admission: Spaceport is free. The tours cost $6. IMAX Theatre is $2.75.
Open: Daily, 9--dusk. The tours start at 9:45, the final one leaving two hours
before dusk. Make a reservation as soon as you arrive at Spaceport.
Location: Spaceport USA and the Kennedy Space Center tours can be reached from
Interstate 95 by taking eastbound Florida 405.
Phone:(407) 452-2121
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Late in the summer of 1622, the greatest treasure ship in the Spanish fleet set sail from Cuba, on its way back to the homeland. The galleon was loaded with gold and silver bars, jewelry, coins, and precious gems. But in the Florida Keys it ran into a hurricane. The Nuestra Senora de Atocha sank to the bottom, carrying forty-seven tons of riches.
In 1985, 363 years later, Mel Fisher found it. The treasure added up to a $400 million, the greatest bonanza of the century. The Key West-based treasure-hunter had been pursuing the myths and tall tales of the Keys for years, convinced that the shipwrecked riches beneath the Gulf of Mexico were within reach of modern technology. There are few topics that spark the popular imagination more than buried treasure. Yarns of pirate booty and Indian hoards long have been a staple of fiction and folklore. The quest for such riches was one of the engines that drove European explorers to America to begin with. Fisher's find in 1985 seemed to be a fulfillment of this tradition.
It actually took Fisher sixteen years to zero in on the Atocha, and it cost the lives of his son and daughter-in-law. They first found the wreck in 1975. But while preparing to dive to it, their ship suddenly started filling with water and capsized. Both Dirk Fisher and his wife, Angel, were drowned. Ten years later to the day, Fisher's younger son, Kane, found the Atocha once more and took its treasure.
Riches recovered from the wreck are displayed in the museum here, as are exhibits on
the techniques of underwater archeology.
Admission: $5.
Location: At 200 Greene Street, near the waterfront.
Phone:(305) 294-2633
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Plimoth Plantation is a recreation of the first permanent English colony in New England in the seventeenth century. The Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth are inextricably associated with the history and myths surrounding America's forefathers. Important elements of the story include Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower, the Mayflower Compact, relations with the indigenous Wampanoag, and our Thanksgiving holiday. Plimoth Plantation tells the story of the 102 English settlers who in 1620 sailed on the Mayflower to North America, and those people who joined the colony during the next several years. Pilgrim Village is set in 1627, seven years after the first arrival, and depicts the daily life of the colonists along with that of their Native American neighbors, the Wampanoag Indians. To recreate the atmosphere of some 365 years ago, first-person narration, in which museum interpreters play the roles of actual historical residents, is used at both Pilgrim Village and Mayflower II. The staff at Hobbamock's Homesite speak as twentieth-century people because of linguistic difficult ties in recreating seventeenth-century Native American roles.
History
North America was the turf on which European powers' expansionist ambitions were played during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The major contestants were Spain, France, and England, although Holland, Russia, and Sweden also established colonies. The vast new continent was viewed as a source of gold, silver, and raw materials which would add to the wealth and prestige of the mother European nation. Inter-European rivalry for power stimulated the exploration and colonization of the newly discovered land. Colonies were needed to protect each country's claims to the new land. Needless to say, European nations found no problem in asserting possession of land inhabited by other people. Ethnocentric European colonists did not respect the claims of the indigenous Native American nations who had inhabited North America for centuries. The European colonists, appropriating huge tracts of territory as their own, restricted Native Americans to smaller tracts of their homelands. In contrast to the economic and power interests of the European monarchies in the New World, individual colonists usually ventured across the ocean for personal reasons. They often were dissatisfied with their lives in the Old World and wanted to make a new beginning even at the risk of privation and death. Colonists' motives were religious and political as well as economic. This was true of the 102 people who sailed from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower in the fall of 1620. Among those on the Mayflower were people who were part of a strong religious reform movement that occurred in England early in the seventeenth century. Many of these religious reformers, or dissenters, believed that the Church of England, the official state church, needed to be reformed because it retained unscriptural elements and too many "popish" vestiges of Roman Catholicism. Those who strove for reform within the Church of England were known as Puritans while those who formally left the Church of England to form their own church were called Separatists.
In 1608, an Anglican congregation of small English farmers from Scrooby Manor, Nottingham shire, formally left the Church of England and established their own congregation. To avoid criminal prosecution and to practice religion freely in their own way, these Separatists emigrated to Holland. Although they found religious freedom in the city of Leiden, the English farm families had a difficult adjustment to urban life. They also felt that their children were being assimilated into the Dutch culture and language and were losing their own ethnic identity. In 1617, some members of the Scrooby congregation began exploring the idea of sailing to America where they would have both religious freedom and the ability to preserve their ethnic identity. They petitioned for a land patent from the Virginia Company of London, and sought investors who would underwrite the expenses of the voyage. They were joined by a group, recruited by Thomas Weston and other merchants, who were seeking economic prosperity. After obtaining a Virginia land patent and investors, 102 people including about half of the Leiden Separatists, set sail from Plymouth on the Mayflower September 6. Due to a navigational error, the Mayflower landed at Provincetown at Cape Cod, not in Virginia, on November 11, 1620. The Pilgrims faced many serious problems. It was winter and they had no shelter. Also, their land patent from a Virginia company was worthless in New England. Thus, the group had no authority to form a civil government. The Mayflower passengers reached a decision to govern themselves by mutual agreement--to covenant and combine themselves into a civil body politic. Now known as the Mayflower Compact, the document, signed by forty-one men, established the ideal of voluntary obedience to lawful majority rule in America. An advance party chose Plymouth, twenty-six miles west of Provincetown, as a good place to settle because of its harbor, defensible high ground, and fresh water. In December, the Pilgrims dropped anchor in Plymouth harbor. The colonists lived on the Mayflower while they built their houses. Disease ravaged their numbers and fifty people died during the first winter. However, in the following years other English people arrived to join the Plymouth Colony which became an English farming community transplanted to the northeastern American coast. In 1627, there were more than 150 people living in the colony. Agriculture and raising livestock were the primary occupations. A Native American named Squanto showed the colonists how to plant corn which became their most successful crop. Surplus corn was traded for beaver skins which were then sent back to England as payment of their debt. A Harvest Home celebration after a bountiful harvest in 1621 became the basis for our American Thanksgiving tradition. Fifty Pilgrims and ninety Wampanoag men were present at the three-day feast. The Native Americans who lived in what is now southeastern Massachusetts were the Wampanoag. Although each community spent the winters together, they divided into family groups and planted crops in the spring. They hunted deer year round and fished in the warmer months. Plymouth Colony lasted from 1620 to 1692. In 1945, Henry Hornblower II founded Plimoth Plantation, an educational, not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the Pilgrim village. Continuous historical research has been undertaken to ensure the accuracy of the recreated seventeenth-century village, its artifacts and interpretation.
Site Description
The 1627 Pilgrim Village, Hobbamock's Homesite, and the Visitor Center are located at
Plimoth Plantation's Eel River Site. The Mayflower II is docked at the downtown Plymouth
waterfront, three miles north of the Eel River Site, off Route 3A. Begin your tour at the
Visitor Center where an orientation film is shown. The exhibition galleries showcase
seventeenth-century colonial furniture, tools, and cooking utensils. The Visitor Center
has museum shops with reproduction items, a cafeteria, and a dining courtyard. The 1627
Pilgrim Village is a fortified town enclosed by a palisade or fence made of
eight-feet-high split white oak logs. Inside the palisade is a small town of twenty-one
structures with a main street which runs through the middle and is intersected at the
center by a cross street. None of the buildings at Plimoth Plantation is original, nor is
the village on its original site. However, reproduction period tools and
seventeenth-century construction methods were used in building village structures. Designs
were based on archaeological digs of early houses in Plymouth and field research in
England and Wales. Historical research was also used to accurately reproduce fences,
tools, furnishings, costumes, agricultural procedures, crops, and animals that would have
been present in the early seventeenth-century village. Plimoth Plantation has an amazingly
realistic feel which successfully conveys the hard, unglamorous life of the Pilgrims more
than 365 years ago. First-person interpretation contributes to transporting visitors back
more than three centuries. Each museum guide has assumed the identity of an original
resident of 1627 Plymouth and plays only that role. In Jacobean accents, they introduce
themselves and talk about their experiences, problems, or their work in New Plymouth. We
encounter familiar names like Myles and Barbara Standish, John and Priscilla Alden,
William and Alice Bradford, William Brewster, and John and Elinor Billington.
Interpreters, who are dressed in reproduction seventeenth-century clothing, carry out the
daily chores of the colonists including cooking, baking in the communal oven, tending herb
and vegetable gardens, feeding animals, conducting musket drills, shearing sheep, and
working in the fields. Houses, each with a small garden in the rear, line both sides of
the main street. The houses are small, dark, cramped, and smoke-filled as fires are lit
and cooking is done indoors even in the heat of August. Most are one-room structures with
a half loft above for storage. Exteriors are made of unpainted hand-riven clapboards, some
with thatched roofs. Chimneys have a wooden framework filled with wattlework (rods and
twigs woven together) and daubed with clay. Tiny windows are covered with oiled paper and
linen to keep out the cold, or are of wooden lattice or upright wooden bars to keep birds
from entering. Another house design is the hovel in which the first floor is dug into the
ground. The Fort/Meetinghouse, the dominant village structure, is a timber framed
blockhouse with a ground floor meeting area and an upper gundeck. The original seafront
fort, built in 1622 after the Plymouth colonists received news of an American Indian
massacre of Jamestown, Virginia, settlers, was intended to provide protection from
American Indian assaults or attacks by Spanish or French ships. Plymouth Colony never
needed to use the fort for defense. The large structure was primarily used for religious
services conducted by Elder William Brewster, and as a courthouse. Other village
structures include a Cow House, a Dutch Barn, a Storehouse, and the Old Common House. In
its continuing effort to make all details of Plimoth Plantation accurate, animals in the
village were selected because they represented or resembled breeds that would have been
found in the original Plymouth colony. In February 1992, when the village was closed for
the winter, a fire swept the animal barn killing seventy-seven rare breed animals. Raised
by hand, these animals were pets of the staff and had been trained to inhabit an
environment filled with hundreds of tourists daily. Hobbamock's Homesite is a recreation
of one Wampanoag family's 1620 New Plymouth summer encampment. The Wampanoag were the
native people who inhabited southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island when the
Pilgrims arrived. Hobbamock was the native ally, Massa soit's, representative to Plymouth.
He lived with the colonists from 1621 to 1641, serving as a guide and interpreter. The
recreation of Hobbamock's residence has four structures in the homesite. One house is a
twenty-by twelve-foot, bark-covered, bent-sapling framed, rectangular house, with two
fireplaces in the center and a bed platform along three walls. A small round house is
interpreted as the home of a second wife. Hobbamock had at least two wives. Women were
isolated during their menstrual cycles in another small house. In hot weather, outdoor
work was done in the Arbor, a shelter made of saplings and boughs. Houses are furnished
with baskets and pottery, as well as Native American and European stone tools. Nearby is a
field planted with native New England varieties of corn, beans, squashes, sun flowers, and
tobacco. Native Americans dressed in period clothing describe the family's life and
demonstrate some of their skills. If you would like to see seventeenth-century crafts,
visit the Carriage House Crafts Center which is entered through an exhibit on seventeenth
century trade. Weavers, potters, basket makers, and joiners use their skills to make
reproduction seventeenth-century products using traditional methods and tools. A shop in
the Crafts Center sells some of their products. Travel to the Plymouth Harbor to board the
Mayflower II, a full-scale reproduction of the type of early-seventeenth-century vessel
used by the Pilgrims. It was constructed in Brixham, England, and sailed to Plymouth,
Massachusetts, in 1957. You'll hear stories about the sixty-six-day voyage in 1620 from
the guides who have assumed the identities of the 1620 crew who are preparing the
three-masted ship for its return to England. You may also talk to those passengers who
have been lucky enough to survive the first winter at New Plymouth, much of it spent
aboard ship. Dockside exhibits inform you about the backgrounds of the original
Mayflower's passengers, and the building and 1957 ocean crossing of Mayflower II. Plimoth
Plantation has frequent special events including seventeenth-century weddings, funerals,
court sessions, Muster Day, and concerts. The museum also runs workshops on such topics as
carving, dyeing with natural materials, doll making, shoemaking, hearth cooking, butter
and cheese making, children's archaeology, doublet and waistcoat making, and half model
ship building. A mid-nineteenth-century Victorian Thanksgiving Day dinner and celebration
is presented annually. Another annual event is the visit by Dutch colonists from Fort
Amsterdam which occurs on Columbus Day weekend.
Admission: Pilgrim Village and Mayflower II: Adults, $18.50; children 5 to 11,
$11.00; seniors, $17.50; Mayflower II: adults, $5.75; children 5 to 11, $3.75.
Open: Daily, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., April to November at Plimoth Plantation's 1627
Pilgrim Village, Hobbamock's Homesite and Mayflower II.
Location: On the Massachusetts coast, 45 miles south of Boston and 20 minutes north
of Cape Cod on U.S. 3; take U.S. 3's Plimoth Plantation Highway exit and follow signs;
Mayflower II is at the State Pier on the downtown Plymouth waterfront, three miles north
of Plimoth Plantation on Route 3A.
Restaurants: Visitor Center cafeteria and dining courtyard.
Shops: Crafts Center Shop; museum shops in Visitor Center and the ship; J. Barnes
Bake Shop at waterfront.
Facilities: The Eel River Site includes the 1627 Pilgrim Village, Hobba mock's
Homesite, the Carriage House Crafts Center, and the Visitor Center with two orientation
theatres and an exhibit gallery; the Waterfront Site at State Pier in Plymouth Harbor has
Mayflower II, a reproduction of the original Mayflower; special events, concerts, and
workshops; a Victorian Thanksgiving dinner; seventeenth-cen tury dinners; conference
facilities.
Hotels: Pilgrim Sands Motel, 150 Warren Ave., Plymouth 02360, (508) 747-0900;
Sheraton Inn Plymouth at Village Landing, 180 Water St., Plymouth 02360, (508) 747-4900,
FAX: (508) 746-2609; John Carver Inn, 25 Summer St. at Market St., Plymouth 02360, (508)
746-7100, (800) 447-7778, FAX: (508) 746-8299; Governor Bradford Motor Inn, 98 Water St.,
Plymouth 02360, (508) 746-6200, (800) 332-1620.
Camping: Myles Standish State Forest, Cranberry Rd., Rt. 3, 44 & 58, South
Carver, (508) 866-2526; Scusset Beach State Reservation, Scusset Beach Rd., Sandwich,
(508) 888-0859; Indianhead Resort, 1929 State Rd., Plymouth 02360, (508) 888-3688.
Phone:(508) 746-1622
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More than 30 years of America's military and space program history are wrapped up in the Intrepid, one of the legendary fighting ships of World War II. Launched at Newport News in 1943, the 27,000-ton aircraft carrier arrived in the Pacific in time for some of the most intense action of the war.
The Intrepid played a critical role in air battles at Truk, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. She was hit by a torpedo at Truk and was struck by two Japanese kamikaze planes in late 1944. But the ship fought back from every attack. Because of a communications breakdown, the crew could not hear orders to abandon ship after the kamikaze strikes, and struggled, instead, to put out the fires that engulfed its deck. The Intrepid stayed afloat.
During the 1960s it was involved in the space program as a recovery vessel for the
Mercury and Gemini orbital shoots. Although dwarfed by the new class of super-carriers, it
was reactivated during the Vietnam War as a base for raids flown over North Vietnam.
Finally retired in 1976, the Intrepid was scheduled for scrapping until New York developer
Zachary Fisher stepped in with a plan to make it a museum. Restored after eight years of
disuse, the Intrepid reopened at its present berth in 1982. The entire ship may be toured.
There are historical exhibits on the hangar deck and displays of aircraft on the flight
deck.
Admission: $10 for adults. Seniors and ages 12-17 pay $7.50, while ages 6-11 pay
$5. Children younger than 6 pay $1.
Open: From May to September, open 10:00 A.M.-6:00 P.M., with the last admittance at
5:00 P.M. From November through April, open Wednesday-Sunday, 10:00 A.M.-5:00 P.M., with
the last admittance at 4:00 P.M.
Directions: On Pier 86 in Manhattan, at the junction of W. 46th St. and 12th
Avenue.
Restaurants: A cafe is on board the Intrepid.
Shops: A gift shop is located on Pier 86.
Handicap Access: The main deck is wheelchair accessible.
Tours: Tours of the Intrepid are self-guided. There are guided tours of the nearby
submarine and destroyer.
Phone:(212) 245-2533
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When prospector Ed Schieffelin announced his intent to look for gold in the Mule Mountains, deep in Apache country, his friends told him: "You won't find anything there but a tombstone." But he hit his strike in 1877 and within three years there were 14,000 people living in the mining camp. By 1887, however, underground water began seeping into the gold mines, making them too expensive to work. Tombstone's brief day was over, but what a day it was.
Every gunfighter, roisterer, lawman, card shark and ne'er do well in the West passed through the place. Some became permanent residents, up on Boot Hill. Three were killed in 1881 in the most celebrated gunfight in Western history, at the O.K. Corral, by Wyatt Earp, his brothers and Doc Holliday. Its saloons were famous for a brawl a night. There was never a place that was quite as wide open as Tombstone. Even after the mines closed for good it was billed as, "The Town Too Tough To Die."
Most of Tombstone's major figures, on both sides of the law, made an appearance at the Courthouse. It was built in 1882, at the height of the town's wild ride to infamy. The courtrooms in which some of Arizona's most notorious killers were tried are shown just as they were when Texas John Slaughter wore a badge and sat at the witness table. The gallows on which some took their final ride is also on the property. After one lynching there, a coroner's jury returned a verdict of "strangulation, self-inflicted or otherwise." The courthouse also displays many historic items from the town's eventful past.
Nearby are Boot Hill, the restored O.K. Corral, the Bird Cage and Crystal Palace
saloons which date from the 1880s and the offices of the Tombstone Epitaph, oldest
newspaper in Arizona.
Admission: Passes are $2.50 for adults, and $1.00 for children ages 7 to 13.
Children ages 6 and under are admitted free.
Open: The park is open year-round to the public, except for Christmas Day. Daily
hours of operation are from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.
Directions: The park is located off Arizona 80, at 219 E. Toughnut Street. It is 70
miles southeast of Tucson, by way of I-10 and Arizona 80.
Restaurants: Food is available within one block.
Shops: There is a gift shop on site.
Handicap Access: The site is expected to be wheelchair accessible in January 1998.
Tours: Self-guided tours of the museum are available.
Phone:(520) 457-3311
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"Buffalo Bill's Defunct," wrote poet E.E. Cummings upon the occasion of Colonel William F. Cody's death in 1917, "how do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mr Death?"
It is difficult to comprehend the grip that this showman and frontiersman had on early twentieth century America. The country was already on wheels, in planes, watching movies about the winning of the West. And here was one of the men who had actually won it, reenacting the legend, bigger than life.
Partially, he was the creation of dime novelist Ned Buntline. But he was partially the genuine article, too. As a young man, he hunted buffalo for the railroads as they moved across the plains. He killed Cheyenne chief Yellow Hand in personal combat and then scalped him. He was a scout with the 5th Cavalry.
But when the West Cody had known as a young man began to die, he went on reliving it as the star of his own Wild West show. Cody toured America and Europe for more than thirty years, until the extravaganza finally went broke in 1911. In the process, he became a living legend, the embodiment of a glorious era.
Cody is associated with many places in the West. He owned ranches in several states. But it was with Cody, Wyoming that he became most closely identified. It actually was platted in 1895 and its developers were among the first to recognize the tourist potential of an Old West atmosphere. Especially, since it was situated on the main road to Yellowstone National Park. Cody was invited to become president of the development company "since he was the best-advertised man in the world." When he insisted the new town be named after himself, the partners agreed that "it did no harm to us and highly pleased the Colonel."
The Irma Hotel, one of the great historic inns of the West, was built by
Buffalo Bill and named after his daughter. This is also where he gathered a lifetime of
personal effects. Old guns, awards given to him by royalty, posters for his traveling
show, memorabilia of those who had worked for him, such as Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull.
The town is now a resort village and the Buffalo Bill Museum forms the centerpiece of an
historical center. The complex also includes museums of Western art, Plains Indians and
firearms.
Admission: $7.
Open: Daily, 7 a.m.--10 p.m., June to August; 8--5, April, May, September, October;
Tuesday through Sunday, 10--3, March and November.
Location: Cody is about 55 miles east of the entrance to Yellowstone, on U.S. 14,
16, 20. The museum complex is in the center of town, at 720 Sheridan Avenue.
Phone:(307) 587-4771
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The Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books were set in several locales around the upper Midwest, following the Ingalls family's movement across the region. For the sake of economy, the popular television series concentrated its action in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. There is more of the family remaining in DeSmet, though.
The Ingalls family moved to DeSmet in 1877; their first home here is called the Surveyor's House, her father, Charles, having worked in that job for the railroad. The homestead has been refurbished as it would have appeared during the time of their residence and is still surrounded by the cottonwood trees the family planted. Ten years after arriving, Mr. Ingalls built another, substantial home, which still stands.
It was in DeSmet that the writer met her husband, Alonzo Wilder. It was also here that Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who would become her editor and collaborator on the books, was born in 1887. The town has preserved other sites associated with the family, including the church and school the author attended.
These Happy Golden Years, a pageant based on the books, is presented during three weeks
in late June and early July every year.
Admission: $3.
Open: The Surveyor`s House and Ingalls Home are open daily, 9--5,
June--mid-September. By appointment, rest of the year. Tours of the local Laura Ingalls
Wilder sites leave from the gift shop near the home during the hours it is open.
Location: DeSmet is located about 40 miles west of Interstate 29, from the U.S. 14
exit at Brookings.
Phone:(605) 854-3383
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When Springfield College students returned to classes after Christmas break of 1891, they had a surprise waiting for them. James Naismith, a physical education teacher at the school, had worked out the details of a new game. He called it, with some lack of imagination, "The Game."
It involved hanging peach baskets at either end of an indoor court, dividing into teams and trying to toss a ball into the baskets. Its outline would be perfectly recognizable today as basketball. Naismith's game was an instant hit and soon was being played in YMCA's across the country. The college trained staff for these institutions.
Basketball is now an international phenomenon, with its top performers among the
highest-paid athletes in the world. But the sport returned to its humble beginnings to
honor its own. The museum features historical exhibits and tributes to the great stars of
the past, as well as interactive displays that allow visitors to test their shooting and
jumping skills against the pros.
Admission: Adult admission passes are $8; those over 60 years, and children ages 7
to 15 are $4. Children under 7 years of age are admitted free of charge.
Open: The site is open year-round to the public, daily hours are 9:00 am to 6:00
pm.
Location: The Hall of Fame is located off Interstate 91, in central Springfield, on
the east bank of the Connecticut River.
Shops: There is a gift shop on the premises.
Handicap Access: The site is fully accessible to the disabled.
Phone:(413) 781-6500
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Scranton was a city built of coal and iron. It was the center of America's largest anthracite belt, the home of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Co., the birthplace of the United Mine Workers union.
As the focus of a highly developed industrial region, Scranton became a major rail center. The Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad was created in 1853 to take the city's products to market. By the early years of the twentieth century, Scranton was the third-largest city in Pennsylvania. Its freight yards were among the busiest in America, and its depot was a showplace. But labor strife, development of alternate sources of energy and the decline of the American iron and steel industry set the city on a long decline.
The Steamtown site, in the former Delaware and Lackawanna yards, is a celebration of
steam railroading. It holds what is among the largest collection of steam-era equipment in
the world. Besides the rolling stock, a working roundhouse, locomotive repair shop, a
visitor center and museum tell the story of Scranton's place in the history of steam
railroads. The former depot, opened in 1908, has been converted into the Lackawanna
Station Hotel. It preserves the ornate features and murals that made this railroad station
the pride of the city.
Admission: For the museum, $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, and
$2 for ages 5-15. The excursion fee, for the train trip, is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors
and $5 for children. The combination admission is $14 for adults, $12 for seniors and $6
for children.
Open: The site is open daily, 9:00 A.M.-5:00 P.M. Trips aboard steam-drawn
locomotives are offered through the late spring, summer and early fall. It is best to call
(717) 340-5203 in advance as schedules can vary. The site is closed Thanksgiving,
Christmas and New Years Day.
Directions: The site is south of downtown Scranton, on South Washington Avenue.
From I-81, take exit 53 and follow signs.
Restaurants: Local restaurants are available.
Shops: There is a bookstore located on site.
Handicap Access: The site is fully accessible save for a few locomotives and
railroad cars.
Tours: Guided tours are not offered.
Phone:(717) 340-5200
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