Family Fun
Hey, boys and girls, moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas… learning can be fun when you do it together! At the Galena & U.S. Grant Museum, and here on our website, we want to help you explore our area’s great history and have fun at the same time.
Port of Galena: 1858
Learn to navigate a realistic, scale model of a steamboat down the Galena River and dock it beside a huge model of the town of Galena as it was back in 1858, more than 150 years ago!
WALK WITH GENERAL GRANT
No one knows downtown like our own General Grant. He’s more than happy to take you and your family for a tour of his favorite places on Main Street – like the DeSoto House and the famous Green Street stairs. He’ll share the stories associated with the many buildings on the National Historic Register and share his experiences when his family owned a leather and saddlery shop more than 150 years ago.
Regularly scheduled walking tours with General Grant are available every Saturday from May through October. Tours operate at 10:30 a.m. and begin at the DeSoto House Hotel at 230 S. Main Street. No reservations are necessary. Meet at the hotel lobby.
MAKE YOUR FAMILY’S ORAL HISTORIES
There is so much we can learn from those we love. Did you know that your parents’ lives, and those of your grandparents and aunts and uncles, are part of history? How cool is that? What would it be like to interview your own family members to learn about what it was like:
1.During the depression
2.To live during World War II or the Korean War
3.To live without a computer, a smart phone or the Internet
4.To ride a horse or a bicycle to work or school
5.To learn how your parents met
6.To experience man walking on the moon
7.To live through 9/11
Depending on their age or life experience, your parents or other older family members, probably have incredible stories to share. Learn how to interview them and create an Oral History, and it will be like traveling back in time.
Here are some websites you and your parents can use, or get help from your teacher, to create some amazing Oral Histories.