Want to understand what it was like to live on the Western frontier?  If so, then you might want to check out the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas.  This interesting museum has a number of exhibits that display how the chuck wagon was used, how Native Americans dressed, and how frontiersmen even furnished their ranch homes.  More impressively, perhaps, is the display of ranch homes and structures vital to the ranching life (you’ll see a school house, a barn, and even a complete rural train station, and that includes an entire train, from the locomotive steam engine to cattle cars to caboose; there’s also livestock pens.  Inside, you’ll find the buildings with authentic furnishings of that frontier time period.  This educational center is well operated and maintained, and just about anyone from young children to adults can enjoy a visit.  Note, too, that the amount of walking you’ll have to do is small and that over mostly level paths.  Everyone in the family might find something he or she will enjoy, and you might find yourself even wanting to come back.  Figure on spending about three hours here.

The center’s latest acquisition is a 1923 Ford Model T touring car.  But the exhibit of most interest to me is one on toys in the Old West.  Here, you’ll see toys which reflect the world in which children lived down through the years.  Your kids will be able to work with gigantic Lincoln Logs, a large jigsaw puzzle and ride a “barrel bronc.”  It’s fascinating to compare the toys then with the videogames and  interactive video “toys” we have now.  There’s also a section about America’s mid-twentieth century fascination with the late 19th Century (that is, the 1880s and the Old West), and how toys, such as cap pistols and holsters and sheriff badges, and so on, were so popular during the same time period as such television programs as Davy Crockett and The Rifleman.

If you’re planning to stay overnight, take a look here a great place.  While in town, youi’ll also want to check out the Buddy Holly Center and the Silent Wings Museum, where you can check out the history of rock and roll and World War II, respectively.  But if you’re into the Old West, the National Ranching Heritage Center is the place to be.

The Western Frontier in Lubbock is a post from: Five DC

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