Pensacola Children's Museum

Cathy Dewey
Posted: 4/25/2020

Hello everyone! My name is Cathy Dewey and I work part time at the Pensacola Historic Trust. But, the current health situation with the Covid-19 certainly has put us all into a major tailspin!!! While our museums have been closed, I have been working on ideas for visitor enhancements that can make our museums even better. While I think we have a lot to offer, every facility can be improved upon and I have some ideas that I am hoping to present. But, in the meantime I want to tell you about my favorite museum at our facility

Though I work at all the museum desks (I do enjoy dressing up in Victorian costumes when working at the Tivoli-High House), my favorite museum to work in is the Pensacola Children’s Museum. The Pensacola Children’s Museum, or PCM as we call it, has numerous interactive exhibits that have been created for the utmost in stimulating a child’s imagination. The PCM has it all from early colonial era exhibits to modern 21st century exhibits. Sit back and I’ll tell you a few of the things that I love about our children’s museum!

I truly enjoy children and love to watch them while they play in our facility. On our first floor, we have a replica of our Historic Village complete with a trading post, a military fort, the LaValle House and a sailing ship, among other activities. Children can put on colonial costumes, sell and buy replica produce and other trading post/farmers market items. They can cook play food in cast iron pots and serve dinners at table in the little play cabin or the fort. They can see how colonial people slept on rope beds, used wheelbarrows to move things around, raised the flag, and churned butter in wooden butter churns. The first floor also has a toddler area with age appropriate interactive toys and a magnet board.

The very best part of working at the PCM is watching the children transform. In the high technology world, we live in these days, the ability to use the imagination has been virtually taken away. When children of this era walk in to the PCM, there is no technology, there is no internet or cell phones or computers. The children are given the opportunity to utilize a seldom used part of their brains…their imagination! I have seen the most fantastic scenarios created in our museum and have never seen the exact same one twice. The awakening of the imagination and what it can produce when challenged is an amazing thing to watch! It is very rewarding to see children of all ages come in, often with a bored look on their face, like “what am I going to do here?” only to see those same children a few minutes later all dressed up in costumes, running around buying and selling play food from the Trading Post and pretending they live in the cabin or are sailing off on the high seas. That makes for a great day for me at the PCM.

Next week I will tell you about some of the exhibits we have on our second floor. Hopefully, reading about our museums while we are all staying safely away from each other, will induce you to come see what we are all about and come watch your children blossom, once our museums are re-opened.