FORT HOPE
sowing seeds of joy
About the Fort
Designed to match an authentic western town of the 1850's, Fort Hope is a non-profit, frontier style museum that features a sheriff's office, blacksmith's shop, feed store, 
old school house, Native American village and much more. Kids can shoot period bow and arrows, go fishing in a small bass pond, build bricks from scratch and even pan for gold! The museum is designed to be hands on so the children get the full frontier experience. One of the kid's favorite activities at Fort Hope is the butter churning. The smiles on their faces when the butter "magically" turns from a liquid into a solid says it all.
About the Loomis Family
The Loomis family has owned the Tar Springs Ranch since 1942. Family members built an earlier version of a western town and allowed charitable organizations to use the setting for hundreds of fund raisers.
Pat, Leigh Ann and their 5 children have lived on the ranch their entire lives. Pat owns a landscaping business while Leigh Ann has her hands full with five growing children.
Frontier Fun Fact:
Not every 49er used the Oregon -California Trail. There were other routes to gold country--one came perilously close to Antarctica!
Those who did not want to endure a four month walk across the west, traveled to California by ship. Trouble was, there was no direct water route to the west coast. So a ship leaving New York had to travel all the way to the tip of South America--skirting the edge of the the Antarctic continent--before heading north to California. It was a difficult trip that sometimes took a complete year.