Everything "western" looks better in sepia, no?
As usual, I am behind on posting our travel adventures here in Texas and around the US. A few months ago, my parents discovered a little place called the Heritage Village in somewhat nearby Woodville, Texas. The museum site is a restored pioneer-era village in east Texas containing period buildings and artifacts and an attached restaurant and gift shop. There’s also a genealogy research facility that specializes in Tyler County.
From our home north of Houston, it took a little under two hours to get to Woodville, and the park is located halfway between Sam Houston National Forest and the Arkansas border. We took the stroller with us, but found that it was rather difficult to get through the bumpy paths around the buildings, and had to leave it behind to access some of them. Since we went on a week day, it was virtually empty, and we only saw one school tour as we were leaving. That was nice because we could take our time through the village, but unfortunately we missed out on any of the demonstrations that are mentioned in the guide and on the website. Another problem is that some of the buildings were extremely musty, and were a bit overwhelming, so we didn’t explore some of them at any great length.
Overall, though, we had fun, and there were lots of interesting objects to admire. My dad, a huge train buff, particularly enjoyed the old Railroad Depot. My mom liked the Collier Store, with its collection of ladies boots and other odds and ends. I was fascinated and disgusted by a reproduction of a dentist’s office (complete with very scary tools). Most of it was completely over the head of my toddler, though older children would definitely get a kick out of it.
These were saws, not dentist tools (forgot to get a picture of the latter).
After the museum we went to The Pickett House Restaurant, which serves boarding house style all you can eat fried chicken, chicken & dumplings, country vegetables, cobbler, biscuits & cornbread. The food was pretty good, and we enjoyed ourselves.
I’m not sure I’d drive too far out of my way to visit the Heritage Village (two hours is pretty long for a toddler), but if you are going through east Texas, it is worth stopping in to see. More pictures that I snapped at Heritage Village can be found here.
World Wide Westfields' Travelogue 