School desks

This was taken inside the one room schoolhouse at Old Cowtown. These desks have a hole cut out in them for a bottle of ink to be placed in (for their old fashioned "inkless" pen).... and individual chalkboards were sometimes used in place of paper, when learning to write. You can see one of the chalkboards on the desk to the right of the photo. Walking through Old Cowtown is like being on the set of Gunsmoke, or Little House on the Prairie, only it's not a movie set - it's historical buildings showing what life was like in the newly forming city of Wichita, during the years of 1865 to 1880. Remember Wichita began as a settlement along the Arkansas River, as a place where cattle drives would stop overnight, giving the cowboys and cattle a place to eat, drink and rest. Thus, the name of this living museum being - Old "COW"town.