Living History Encampment at LCC

The campus at Lamar Community College displayed a vision into the past on Friday and Saturday, October 2^nd and 3rd, offering a view of different segments from a century of development across the High Plains.

The Living History Encampment is featured every two years at the college, organized by history professor, Kelley Emick. Volunteers and living historians help depict what life was like, decade by decade, from the early 1800s to the turn of the century. Each historical display provided insight as to how we grew and developed as a part of our young nation, living on and pushing back the boundaries of America.

More than a dozen living history displays were on offer during the free Encampment, ranging from the Native Americans in the early 1800s to Mountain Men and Fur Trappers, the first white men who followed some of the trails developed after Lewis and Clark made their history journey into the West.

Other historical displays included early pioneers of the 1850s, Civil War influences, Mining Camps and Merchants, Ladies of the Night, Vaqueros, Trail-herders and Homesteaders from the 1880s.

These displays aren’t static; each of the enactors has researched their period so they can converse and explain precisely how life was conducted in their specific time line. Visitors receive an education into the customs and language of the day, how foods and crops were cultivated and processed, how commerce and industry developed from simple bartering for goods and how various cultures did and did not get along as the frontiers were explored and tamed.

Emick said over a thousand visitors come to the Encampment each year. School students from southeast Colorado usually visit the LCC campus on Friday and a wide range of visitors will attend on Saturday. Some of the principal contributors to the Encampment included: Huddleston-Butler Foundation, the Wal-Mart Foundation, Colorado East Bank and Trust, The Weitgenant Trust, Community State Bank, Lamar Rotary, Four Seasons Insurance, Big R, Air Care Incorporated, Rudy Torres Construction, Valley National Bank, Bent Count Correctional Facility and McClave State Bank.

By Russ Baldwin