Skip to main content

Sewing to Sowing at Fort Nisqually

Calendar/Event Details

Experience the joys and labors of springtime in the 1850s.

Guests can check out our poultry house and visit with our heritage breed chickens and rooster. 

Families can get their hands dirty in the Fort’s heritage gardens, which include the kitchen garden, a small orchard, and field crops.

Visitors can help operate the Fort’s 1800’s winnowing machine and learn more about the agricultural enterprises of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The ladies of the Fort will demonstrate various hand-sewing techniques and operate one of the world’s earliest sewing machines, the Wheeler and Wilson. Visitors can learn to sew a button and do some simple embroidery.  A fine assortment of needlework by the Fort’s sewing guild will be available for sale. All proceeds support the Fort’s historical clothing collection. 

As always, visitors will encounter several dozen historic interpreters while they cook in the kitchen, play music on the porch, spin yarn in the Laborers’ Dwelling, and hammer in the blacksmith’s shop.

Admission is $8-$10. Children 3 and younger are free.

Event Details