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Newtown History Center

Explore the 2nd Oldest Town in the Shenandoah Valley

The Great Wagon Road and Westward Expansion

A School Outreach Program Designed for Elementary School Students
Grades 4th and 5th
Waggon RoadThe cost: $1 per participating student

Newtown History Center staff will present the program at your school wearing period costume representing what common people wore in the early 1800s. They will illustrate curriculum points with reproduction period maps that students will learn how to read and will use to plan immigration and transportation routes just as travelers and emigrants would have in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

This Program is designed to assist teachers in their instructional efforts with students who are in the Virginia Studies and United States History to 1877 units of the Virginia History and Social Science Standards of Learning. The presentation will include discussion of the Shenandoah Valley as a geographic corridor for early American immigration to the South and West. Students will be able to see how early Americans perceived the region through maps (sections VS.1.i, VS.2.b and V.S.6.c) and the role that the Great Wagon Road played in the early American westward movement.

Limitations of early transportation technology and the difficulty mountain ranges posed to travelers will be discussed. The program will also address the features of trans-Appalachian geography (US1.2.b & c) that early American immigrant to the West would have found desirable.

Stone House Restoration Project Progress Updates

  • The Preservation Trades Challenge
  • The Last of the Shingles Have Arrived!
  • The People in Mr. Gainer’s Painting
  • Educational Programming
  • Old Tools as Simple Machines
  • The Great Wagon Road and Westward Expansion
  • Objects as Primary Sources: Historical Detective Work

Upcoming Events

What We Do

With the town of Stephens City as its focus, the Foundation seeks to interest and engage residents, visitors, scholars and students in the events, lifeways and material culture of the region. We also strive to promote the preservation of the buildings, artifacts and landscapes that are associated with the history of the town of Stephens City.

Current Hours of Operation

For current hours of operation please click here.

History Center Location

PO Box 143 (USPS Mail)
5408 Main Street (FedEx/UPS Deliveries)
Stephens City, VA 22655-0143

Phone: (540) 869-1700
E-mail: info@newtownhistorycenter.org

More Information

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