Take a step back in time at Greenfield Village

There aren’t many places where you can be a passenger on a train pulled by an authentic smokebelching steam locomotive, take a ride in a shiny vintage 1900s Model T Ford, watch a turn-of-the-century saw mill in action and step inside the birthplaces of the captains of industry in the early 1900s.

That place is Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich. It’s where you can step back in time, have fun and get a history lesson without even realizing it.

Upon entering the Village the first thing you encounter is the train with four open cars waiting for you to board for a trip around the perim- eter of the 80-acre property with stops along the way. It’s a get-on and get-off ride that is included in your ticket. The station staff is quick to advise passengers to shake their clothes to remove the coal particles that are belching out of the locomotive’s smoke stack rather than brushing.

A highlight for many visitors is taking a ride in a 1900s vintage Model T Ford convertible. These vehicles are originals that were produced just up the road at the Ford Rouge Plant. They’ve been carefully restored and maintained and can carry a total of four passengers. The $10 ride fee is well worth it because you get a tour that includes some historical snippets from the driver about the auto you’re riding in, Henry Ford and the various buildings you’re passing.

After the Model T tour, walk over to the 1913 carousel and choose one of the colorful animals to ride. Just a block away is the building that originally housed the Wright Brothers bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Learn how they made the big step from making and repairing bikes to constructing an airplane and making the world’s first sustained flight of a heavierthan-air craft in Kitty Hawk, N.C., in December 1903.

Edison’s Menlo Park (New

Jersey) laboratory, where he invented the incandescent light bulb, is open for visitors to see the equipment and visualize how he used it in his experiments. The building right across the street is where his employees lived and was the first structure ever to be electrified.

Greenfield Village has been around a long time. Ford opened it in 1929 when he started the Edison Institute School System with 32 grade school students. At the school’s peak in the 1940s it had more than 300. His philosophy of education was Continued on page 19