WINSOR CASTLE ACTIVITY ROOM

Interacting with the Past $4000 Needed

As a Mormon pioneer tithing ranch, a guest house for travelers along the Honeymoon Trail, and a refuge for women and children in families who practiced polygamy in the late 1800s, the Northern Arizona national monument’s history is replete with titillating tales of the Western frontier. A cornerstone of the Pipe Spring experience has been the hands-on provided to visitors. However, since the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic, few of the hands-on experiences that had once successfully connected visitors to this compelling history continue to do so.

To rectify this, Pipe Spring National Monument is seeking funding to create an interactive space within Winsor Castle, the monument’s cornerstone fort, to demonstrate both indigenous and pioneer crafts such as cross stitch, weaving, leatherwork, cordage, and quilting as well as period games and children’s toys like Jacob’s Ladders and Jacks. Additionally, the interactive space will also feature period telegraph equipment, historic school supplies, and examples of period-appropriate literature.

“It will be a room where you’re actually able to touch stuff,” said Krystal Glass, Pipe Spring Interpretive Ranger.

The interactive space is proposed to be located within the upper level of the south building of Winsor Castle between the Honeymoon Suite and Telegraph Room. It improves the visitor experience by providing tangible encounters for visitors, inviting them to experience glimpses of what everyday life was like during the fort’s heyday in the last half of the 19th century.

Your support for this hands-on project will be used to not only replenish materials needed for the crafts, games, and toys, but also to install period-appropriate floor coverings and textiles as well as replica furnishings. It will also help fund the opening of a space for demonstrations that recreate early Native American life at the site, including indigenous skills, such as cross stitch, weaving, leatherwork, cordage making, and quilting. This activity room will be incorporated into Pipe Spring‘s new open house tour format, where guests will be allowed to stop in the room for a while to enjoy an activity and interact with pieces of history.

Funding for this project will lead to the creation of Pipe Spring’s first interactive space, one that can be used year-round and become a key attraction during the colder months and inclement weather. Moreover, the space will be adaptive so that it can meet the monument’s needs and goals. The goal is for the space to become a mainstay of Pipe Spring’s education program, housing enriching experiences for local school and youth groups, as well as creating an attractive environment to record social media content and film short clips of educational demonstrations inspiring repeat visitation from the local community.