October 24, 25, & 26, 2008               Two ($2) Dollars adult or child – includes entry to site and 10 “trick or treat only tickets” Tickets for attractions: 3 / $1.00 available at information booths on the grounds. The Clark County Museum Guild sponsors a super Halloween program for children up to about age 12.  This program is modeled after Halloweens as remembered by those who were children during the first half of the 1900’s.  The visitor will find things a “little” spooky, but mostly lots of “yesterday’s” Halloween fun.  Leave those adult spook houses to the teens and adults and bring your younger children to The Clark County Museum where all can step back to an earlier time when life is remembered as being lived at a slower pace and in a far more transparent and close community than the world we seem to encounter today. This program offers a step back to earlier times when children anxiously awaited Halloween.  Costumes were planned, decorations were made, candies or other treats were purchased or made, and finally the day for trick or treating arrived.  Children in costume went door to door in their own neighborhoods and often in neighborhoods near-by.  Word often spread from “ghost to goblin” about the house offering the best treat and children by the droves would ring that door-bell and call out “trick or treat”.  A goodly amount of candy was often consumed along the way.     Trick or treating on the Museum’s Heritage street recreates that sense of excitement and freedom experienced by many children trick or treating years ago. In those days gone by, before the VCR or Home Theatre, many homes hosted Halloween parties where hosting parents or older brothers and or sisters told ghost stories while party goers hesitantly reached into covered containers passed around the room.  Everyone gingerly reached under the cover to touch the “guts, eyeballs, tongues, fingers and body “innards”, being described in the “ghost story” being told.  Groans and or screams were the normal response as the hand was quickly withdrawn and the container passed on to the next person.   A visit to the Museum’s “Spook Alley” will recreate some of the same conflicting sense of a desire to touch and explore and at the same time a sense of repulsion and desire to quickly withdraw your hand. Another popular activity, from those days before video games, was the playing of simple “carnival style” games.  It was commonplace for churches, community centers, civic organizations, and schools to host a fundraiser by setting up a “mid-way” filled with simple, often home made, carnival-style games.  A variety of “can you do it” games such as ring-toss, pitch and knock down the ?, go fishing, and perhaps even a cork pop-gun shooting gallery were played and winners were awarded simple prizes.  Customers, often in costume, played using tickets bought with small change.  Add in a cakewalk, costume contest and maybe a costume parade and you have the “fixins” for an afternoon or evening of Halloween fun.  A few hours where schoolwork, job woes, and family issues could be set aside and the simple fun of the minute prevailed.   More often than not little money was spent for such family entertainment.  After trick or treating on Heritage Street stop by the games and toss a bean bag or ring and see what you can win while playing the games along the “Mid-Way”. For the more adventuresome visitors take a walk through the Haunted (but not too haunted) Depot and Ghost Town where the Ghouls, Ghosts, and Goblins of Nevada’s past creep about in search of those railroad and mining days of yesterday.   Who knows if you are not careful you might even hear a “Tommy knocker” from one of the many mines in Southern Nevada or encounter a railroad “hogger or monkey” hurrying off to work. For More Information Call CLARK COUNTY MUSEUM 455-7955 for details 1830 S Boulder Hwy Henderson  NV  89002