Roxborough Makes Historical Discoveries at History Colorado
Is there any better way to spend a day in the middle of the school week in January than on a field trip? Probably not. That’s what Roxborough students did with their time, climbing on a bus to visit the ever-popular History Colorado in downtown Denver.
After a quick orientation groups split off in different directions, all with a goal to learn about an important period in Colorado history. Each group had a chance to visit four different places and times.
Popular with everyone was the farmhouse at the Dust Bowl exhibit. Students experienced a short simulation of what a dust storm hitting an eastern Colorado farm would be like. It feels so real to some that volunteers made special announcements about where everyone really was and how a dust storm was not actually hitting Denver at that moment. Experiencing this natural disaster is a unique way to relive history and get a new perspective on past life. How would you have fared?
Can you imagine volunteering to do chores and enjoying them thoroughly? Well, that’s exactly what students did when they visited the Keota town area. Each student got a character to become, doing all of that person’s chores on an average day. To many this was a favorite activity, with fun chores like collecting eggs, milking cows, and going to the general store involved.
Now think back to the late 1800s when miners were arriving in search of gold and silver. It was a hard life, but with it came the promise of possible riches. What would it have been like spending 10 hours of every day deep underground with only two candles for light? Many students had a chance to practice some of the work miners had to do to remove ore, such as mucking, hammering holes for dynamite, and blasting. How many survived and had successful explosions that created more rich ore to be carted out?
Near the same time in history, Bent’s Fort was also going strong, a place to gather and trade all from all over the region. If you needed furs, clothing, tools, knives, spices or anything at all not available from the natural area around you, this was the place to find it. People would come from far and wide to trade for valuable goods, such as tea blocks all the way from China. Of course they had to have something of value to trade in return. What would you have traded if you lived in the time of Bent’s Fort?
After hours of discovery, everyone was in a great mood and ready to head home. The students of Roxborough will have a lot to think about in the coming weeks on how Colorado became the state it is today!
