Special Ohio Village celebration transports attendees to 1890s

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Imagine it's Independence weekend 1898 at Ohio Village.

Ohio native William McKinley is president, recruitment has begun for the Spanish-American War, and horse and train are the primary sources of travel.

Attendees at Saturday's celebration experienced an Independence Day celebration in a small American town at the turn of the 20th century.

Activities included learning about the women's suffrage movement, dancing to music from a fiddle, being recruited for the U.S. Calvary, and getting to vote in the town's mayoral election.

Ohio Village chose 1898 for the event because of Ohio's importance in reshaping America in the decades after the Civil War.

"The post-Civil War period, Ohio became a very important state in the Union for political leadership, industrial development, the births of a lot of social movements," Ohio Village Program Manager Andrew Hall said. "In fact, the temperance movement actually got its first major start here in Ohio, in Westerville."

Ohio Village has its own weekly village newspaper that explains daily events today from the point of view of 1898 America.