On Sept. 9

St. Louis kids will get a chance Saturday, Sept. 9, to see how families worked and played in the early 1820s at the Historical Children's Festival on the St. Charles riverfront. 

Hours for this year's event on the First Missouri State Capitol grounds will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public. 

And a lot of the demonstrations will be taught by kids. 

There are two other events being held on the same weekend at the riverfront. The city of St. Charles holds its annual Civil War Reenactment on Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3. p.m. Also, there is a Blue Grass music festival on Saturday night. 

So there are plenty of things to do for the whole family. 

The Historical Children's Festival puts a special emphasis on hands-on activities for kids.

Doug Jacobs and his family of St. Charles will be on hand to display a wide variety of homemade toys from the 1800s era. Kids will get demonstrations and then actually can play with most of them. 

Jacobs is a special education teacher in the Fort Zumwalt School District. He and his family have made a hobby of making and demonstrating pioneer artifacts. He said he got involved 15 years ago because "I love history and kids." 

"Playing with the kids at these historical events is a big part of the attraction for us," Doug said. 

His daughter, Lacey, is now 17 and a senior at St. Charles High. She said she's been along on festival trips to various festivals "like forever, since I was 2."

One of Lacey's crafts is to help kids make handkerchief dolls, made from cloth and string. 

Her brother, Zack, also has been a part of the events since he was a tiny baby. Now, 15, Zack also demonstrates toys. One of his specialties are the stilts that kids get to try at the festival. 

The family also has a nine-pin game and a wood-and-cloth Jacob's ladder toy. They also demonstrate a Lacrosse game that features two woven-wood baskets and a cloth ball that is tossed back and forth. 

Doug said, "We've made most of the stuff ourselves." One homemade tool is a hammer made by cutting off a tree section at a point where a limb sticks out. The trunk piece is the head of the hammer and the limb is the handle. The tool is used for pounding garden stacks into the ground. 

At the demonstrations, the whole family wears homemade clothes with designs from the 1820s era. 

Other activities at the children's festival include butter churning, quill pen writing and candle dipping. Also, there is an old-fashion mortar and pestle, where kids can grind corn. 

Then, they can feed the corn meal to the mounted police horses that are on the grounds. 

There are also story-telling locations and Anheuser-Busch has a special exhibit of furs. St. Charles was a fur-trading center in pioneer days. In pioneer days, trappers came to St. Charles from throughout the Missouri River basin to sell their pelts.

Families can tour the restored First Capitol Building, with its displays of pioneer living and the earliest state government chambers.

Another local girl who has gotten into the pioneer mood is Rebecca Mantia. The 14-year-old will be volunteering at various points on the festival grounds for the second year. 

Rebecca got interested in historical things when she was a spectator at events on the St. Charles riverfront. She then called Dave Klostermeier, the First Capitol site administrator, and volunteer to help. 

She also has a special pioneer costume for her work. About her interest, she said, "I like to see things people did in the 1800s," she said.