Town life in the 1880s

First, I'd like to say Hello! I'm new to Sweet Americana Sweethearts and I'm happy to be here. I write Christian romance stories based in the American West.

Last summer, my family and I visited the Black Hills of South Dakota. We roamed all over looking for history and fun. One of the places we visited that I absolutely loved was the 1880s town just off I90 outside of Murdo.

The site is huge and as soon as you walk through the door, the only thing that will remind you that you aren't back in time is the gift shop. As soon as you exit the barn it feels like you've stepped through time.

Each little section is set up so that you can either walk through or look through windows to see real dwellings and businesses from that period. I was fascinated with every single bit of it and I took over 100 photos there, just for research.

One of my favorite places was the doctor's office. We tend to think of doctoring as terribly archaic in the late 1800's, but you would easily recognize this as the room where a patient might recuperate. At this time, physicians were often also dentists.

Another area that I found particularly interesting was the mercantile. I'd only ever really seen a mercantile in television shows. Luckily, it seems like they did a fairly good job, but seeing one in real life, with the bottles, fabrics, threads, shoes, etc made it much more real.

We spent about two hours looking through all the old buildings and letting the kids run around. If you love history and are as fascinated by a life of yesteryear as I am, I highly recommend a stop at 1880s town where you can get a real feel for that time.

Thank you for having me!

Kari Trumbo is an inspirational romance author, blogger and proud home schooling mother to four great kids. She interacts often on reader groups on Facebook and volunteers at the local library when needed. When she isn’t writing, she is obsessively reading and expanding her skills as a wordsmith. Kari lives in her great-grandfather’s remodeled 1890-built home in central Minnesota with her husband, children, cats, and one hungry wood stove. 

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