A history lecture called “Where Are We?: Geography at Hoggatt” was presented by Glenn Sibbel, a Hoggatt School docent at 2:15 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

The lecture introduced how and where the Hoggatt School was built and showed the geographic location of states, counties and cities in 1860s. It also let people experience how and what students learned about in geography at the time.

Hoggatt School, built in 1862, is a one-room schoolhouse museum currently located at 18^th and Burnett, which is at Meeker School grounds. It was first built to serve the education of two families before Ames was built. Later, it became the first public educational building in Ames. Now it usually opens during summer vacation to give lectures to the public.

The decorations in the Hoggatt School are the same as they were in the 1860s, which gave the public the sense of taking a time machine going back to that era. Pointing to the oil lamp on the wall, Sibbel revealed the history of the time.

Because there was no electricity in 1860s, all the lamps in the room were oil lamps. The mugs hanging on the wall are not plastic because there were no plastic mugs at the time. Shaking the bell by the door, Sibbel depicted a scene that would’ve called kids to come into the school.

Sibbel reminded everyone the American Civil War was in 1861. After the war, there were 34 states in the United States. He showed people the east area painted yellow on the map, where the states were at that time.

After visitors got familiar with general geographic information of the whole country. Sibbel sent out maps of counties, townships and cities. He helped visitors pay special attention to Story County, Iowa. Peter Hallock, the president of Ames Historical Society, explained the reason for Nevada becoming the County Seat by pointing out its central location in the country.

A funny little game at the end was useful to review the knowledge. Sibbel started a name of place that existed in 1860s. Whatever letter a place ended with is the letter that the next place needed to start with.

Sibbel worked as a teacher for Ames Community Schools for nearly 40 years and currently works as a supervisor at Iowa State University. He became a Hoggatt School docent voluntarily in 2015.

When Sibbel worked for the elementary school, he brought students to Hoggatt School once a year and they pretended that they were from the 1860s. “We wore costumes and (brought) special lunches, and we did lessons like what they would have done in 1860s. Because of the decoration and old stuff in the room, it’s authentic. You come here and turn into 1860s child,” Sibbel said.

Sibbel said teaching geography in Hoggatt School is something he is interested in doing. He would like to continue to work with Hoggatt School and continue to volunteer. He hoped that people can benefit from it by the knowledge. “If they know something, they would appreciate the past and appreciate what they have now,” Sibbel said.