Историческое общество округа Кламат выпустило настольную игру для изучения локальной истории

Local history has been dealt a new hand with the launching of a trivia card game. The Klamath County Historical Society, in partnership with the Klamath County Museum Foundation, has created the Klamath County History Trivia Game, a 100-card collection designed to introduce students to local history through questions, photographs and answers drawn from decades of historical research. “We love history and we learn so much from history,” game designers Mary Nobel and Linda Hammerich said. “It was a lot of fun making it.” The two developed the game using information from the “Klamath Echoes”, 16-volume series produced by Klamath County historians DeVere and Helen Helfrich, who sought to preserve the history of the Klamath Basin, Southern Oregon and Northern California. Rather than simply recounting broad historical events, the publications preserved the histories of individual Klamath Basin communities such as Klamath Falls, Bly, Bonanza and Sprague River and their industries, transportation routes and pioneer families. The volumes drew upon historical records, photographs and the recollections of people who had experienced portions of that history firsthand. “(The Helfrichs) did all the research and writing of the series back in the '60s and 70s. Many of the books feature first-hand accounts collected by them,” the game designers said. Each card features a question and historical photograph on one side and the answer on the reverse — similar to a flash card — transforming material from the Klamath Echoes into an interactive learning tool. Historical images were provided by the Klamath County Museum, with historian Dan Hawkes assisting in selecting and preparing photographs for the project. “The answers are all found in the Echoes,” the game designers said. “Some of the information we were familiar with, but we still came away learning a lot of things about Klamath County’s history that we didn’t know before.” The project was funded through a grant from the Western Wind Foundation, which provides funding for projects intended to promote students’ interest in local history. As such, Nobel and Hammerich distributed copies of the game, including complete sets of the Klamath Echoes, to all public and private middle and high school history classrooms in Klamath County. “The game offers students an opportunity to learn about their surroundings through stories and images connected specifically to Klamath County rather than approaching history solely through state or national events,” the game designers said. “Books are the best source for history, and we hope the game will encourage students to take a greater interest in the history of the communities in which they live.” Copies of the Klamath County History Trivia Game, as well as volumes of the Klamath Echoes, are available for purchase at the Klamath County Museum.