Muskogee ninth-graders spent Saturday morning searching Three Rivers Museum for Girl Scout cookies and famous aviators.
They were part of a museum scavenger hunt created by Diane Walker, Oklahoma history teacher at the 8th and 9th Grade Academy at Alice Robertson. Walker assembled a list of 49 historic facts students were to find within two hours.
“It’s giving them the opportunity to see local Oklahoma history,” Walker said. “They learned things they didn’t know.”
For example, they learned that early aviators Charles Lindberg and Amelia Earhart visited Muskogee in the late 1920s.
“And Wylie Post, he created the pressurized flight suit,” ninth-grader Keaton Davis said.
Classmate Sydnee Lane said “we are discovering more about Alice Robertson.”
Students were asked where Alice Robertson worked in Washington, D.C. (Congress) and if she favored women’s right to vote (no).
Walker said her list included “lots of different things.”
“Such as this is where Girl Scout Cookies were first made,” she said. “Hopefully, they learn about local Muskogee businesses, different people who played a part in making the city, famous people who visited the aviation aspect of our city. Muskogee was extremely important in the beginning of Oklahoma history.”
The hunt also cleared misconceptions, Walker said.
For example the Jefferson Highway was an early interstate auto route that passed through Muskogee. The famed Burma Shave ad campaign, series of signs with a quip on each sign, originated on the Jefferson Highway, not Route 66, Walker said.
“We learned how Jefferson Highway went north and south and Route 66 went east to west,” Walker said.
Ninth-grader Dani Conn said she didn’t even know Three Rivers Museum existed.
“This is my first time being in here,” Conn said.
Walker said Three Rivers is a good resource about local history and Oklahoma history.
“It’s eclectic,” she said. “It has a lot of everything pertaining to Muskogee history, different people in town, such as Charles Haskell or Alice Robertson. And all the different relationships we had with the state. Aviation has always been a big part of Oklahoma because of oil. And the aspect of African American businesses that were in town and Native American impact we had in Muskogee. It has a things about the outlaws, sheriffs and deputies that were part of Indian Territory.”
Walker said she’s working on another scavenger hunt at the Muskogee War Memorial around Dec. 7, the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.
“I’m trying to build one for each museum in town,” she said.
