Museum After Dark: Behind-the-Scenes Tour and Riders on the Orphan Train presentation

The Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center is hosting its monthly Museum After Dark event on Friday, January 21st from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. The event will include a special behind-the-scenes tour with Museum Director Jake Krumwiede and Archivist Aaron Preston, who will give a special guided tour through the Heritage Center’s collection to showcase many never-before-seen artifacts and manuscripts.

The event will take place on the evening opening of the new exhibit All Aboard: Examining the Orphan Trains. Curator of Collections Amy Johnson will be on hand to talk about the making of the exhibit. The exhibit explores the history of orphan trains that brought orphaned children from the overpopulated cities in the eastern United States, out to northwestern Oklahoma, across the Great Plains and beyond, during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

As a part of the special exhibit opening, there will be a special live performance and presentation by Phil Lancaster and Alison Moore. The one-hour multimedia program combines live music, a video montage with archival photographs and interviews of survivors, and a dramatic reading of the 2012 novel Riders on the Orphan Train by award-winning author Alison Moore. The program, supported by Oklahoma Humanities, is the official outreach program of the National Orphan Train Complex Museum and Research Center based in Concordia, KS. Their mission is to raise awareness and preserve stories about the orphan train movement.

The Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center is located at 507 S. Fourth St. in Enid. For more information, please call 580-237-1907 or visit www.csrhc.org. The Heritage Center and Humphrey Heritage Village are open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Guests visit the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center for a behind-the-scenes tour.

Phil Lancaster and Alison Moore