Old City Park contains a village of about 27 buildings from around Dallas dating between 1840 to 1910. They have guided tours available twice a day. We opted to self-tour (there is no difference in admission cost). The park is situated on 13 acres of nice sweeping landscape with colorful wildflowers and a dirt road for the merchants.

If you turn left from the ticket office, you can tour the buildings in descending order of age. This starts with a log cabin (the Miller Log House) from 1847. There are also period buildings (most with furnishings) of merchants, including a Dentists office (c 1905), Hotel (c 1902), Doctors office (c 1890), the 1905 Citizen's Bank, an 1886 Railway Depot, and 3 general stores.

The park also has several former residences from this period. Most notable is the Sullivan House from 1885. When we walked inside, there was a tour in progress (by well informed volunteers), so we joined it. I'm glad we did, because they pointed out many interesting connections between the furnishings and the Sullivan family. The house had dual (gas/electric) lighting, and had a bath with running water added much later. There were personal pictures and original furniture as well.

This park provided endless opportunities to explain to my young daughter about how different life was back then compared to now. For example, the Railway Depot (and its freight room) allowed me to explain the importance of the railroads to the economic growth of our country. They have a working farm that demonstrated that they couldn't run to the grocer like we do now.

Old City Park is very nice and often overlooked. It was a great history lesson for me, and having my young daughter with me made me stretch even more to think what life was like before airplanes, email, and strip malls. Their phone number is 214-421-5141.