Tucson, AZ --- This month, the Presidio Museum’s Living History Day will celebrate the trades, skills, arts and crafts of the Southwest. Men commonly earned a living by joining the military, working in the church, blacksmithing, or providing the necessary services the Presidio would have needed. Living History Day demonstrations related to men’s responsibilities, include:
**Blacksmithing
**Conducting soldier drills and the firing of the cannon
**Displaying uniforms and weapons of the US Cavalry
**Cooking by a garrison camp cook
Women tended to the home and cared for their families. Living History Day demonstrations related to women’s responsibilities include:
**Tastings of hand-made tortillas and Mexican hot chocolate
**Displays on the crops of the Columbian Exchange (what fusions occurred in foods when the Spanish and Native Americans shared their use of ingredients and recipes)
**Colcha embroidery, a style of densely-embroidered wool threads on cotton or linen fabric that emerged from the southwest during the Spanish Colonial period
**Weaving and spinning
March’s Living History Day will also include an “Escape Historic Tucson” scavenger hunt. Visitors will find themselves “trapped” in 18th and 19th century Tucson and will need to find the clues to unlocking the past to figure out a passcode for returning to 2023. Answers to the clues will be found in demonstrations, on signs, and throughout the Presidio Museum. Those who successfully find the passcode will have “escaped Historic Tucson” to return to the present and will receive a family pass good for two adults and two children to visit the museum at a future date.
Living History Day will be held on Saturday, March 11, from 10 am-2 pm and the cost is $10/adult, $5/person ages 6-13, and free for those five and younger and Presidio Museum Members. Pima County residents, seniors, and the military receive $3 off with ID.
The museum’s Salon & Saloon Lecture Series continues this month on Saturday, March 18, at 2 pm with “Quirky Episodes of Death & Danger in the Santa Cruz Valley” by National Park Service ranger Rick Collins. The Santa Cruz Valley is a weird place. Rivers flow backwards, giant cow skulls grace restaurants, marijuana factories grow legal weed, and nuclear missile sites are turned into museums. Even death and danger take a strange twist in the Valley. This presentation covers some of those strange and not so well-known stories from the “mighty” Santa Cruz River. The lecture will be held as part of the Fort Lowell at 150: A Celebration of Regional History event, presented by the Presidio Museum at Fort Lowell Park, 2900 N. Craycroft Rd. Because the lecture is part of the Fort Lowell 150th celebration, there is no charge. However, donations are appreciated.
Attendees at the Presidio Museum’s Fourth Saturday Family Funday will celebrate Archaeology Awareness Month with a variety of family-friendly activities, including:
· Learning how stone tools (ex: arrowheads) are made and used through flintknapping
· Using an atlatl to throw darts
· Viewing artifacts that have been found in the Tucson area
· Creating your own petroglyph
The event will be held on Saturday, March 25, from 10 am to 1 pm, and is included in admission.
Our popular walking tours continue this month. Tours are $25/person or $20/Presidio Museum Member.
Turquoise Trail (A Slightly Shorter Version) – Sunday, March 19, 10 am-12 pm
Public Art & Murals – Saturday, March 25, 10 am-12 pm
Mansions of Main Ave. – Saturday, March 26, 10 am-12 pm
See https://tucsonpresidio.com/walking-tours/ for tour descriptions and to register.
The Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum is located on the northeast corner of the original Presidio at 196 N. Court Ave. The Presidio Museum is a reconstruction of the original Tucson Presidio built in 1775. Docent tours give visitors a glimpse of what life in the Presidio was like for soldiers and other residents. Additional highlights include an original 150-year-old Sonoran row house and a 2,000-year-old prehistoric pit house. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children ages 6-13 and free for children 5 and under and Presidio Museum members. Special events have separate rates. The Presidio Museum is managed by the Tucson Presidio Trust for Historic Preservation, a not-for-profit entity whose mission is to guide and aid in the interpretation of history at the Presidio San Agustín through research, education and living history experiences.
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