Hands-On Lessons in Local History : Education: At the Stagecoach Inn Museum, wide-eyed schoolchildren experience life as it was in 1894 in the Conejo Valley.

There is a term often used when describing movies and books that can be appropriately applied to the Stagecoach Inn Museum--suspension of disbelief.

It may be that the replica stagecoach has an axle that does not turn. After all, the closest it came to the true West was on a Hollywood set.

And it’s true that when children crowd into a pioneer kitchen to bake biscuits, an electric toaster is hidden in the antique black-iron stove.

And then there’s the inn itself. The real one burned down in April, 1970.

But every Wednesday, when wide-eyed children crowd into the historical museum, employees at the Stagecoach Inn will insist that the year is 1894, not 1994.

The struggle to maintain historical accuracy is the key to this learning museum’s success, says Carol Anderson, the museum director.

“We want people, and especially children, to see exactly what this area was like when people used to come through here on the stagecoach,” Anderson said. “It’s the best way to learn about the past.”

And museum officials have done their best to recreate history. Downstream from the Stagecoach Inn, hidden from Ventu Park Road by a grove of sycamore trees, are a pioneer house, a Spanish soldier’s adobe and a Chumash hut.

And just south of the inn is a three-quarter-size replica of Timber School, once the area’s only one-room schoolhouse.

The Timber School was built by high school students over the past three years and was initially scheduled for completion last June. But the opening has been delayed until April because the students want the project to be perfect.

Midway through construction, a 78-year-old former Timber School student noticed that plans for the wood-framed building omitted a second entrance used to split boys from girls.

“They wanted everything to be just as it was,” Anderson said. “Otherwise, there was no point in building it.”

Once the floor is completed and the antique schoolroom furniture is moved in, Anderson said, schoolchildren will be able to learn what it was like to sit in class a century ago.

Until then, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders from across the Conejo Valley will continue a program established to recreate life from the days when the inn, called the Grand Union Hotel, was a stopover for stagecoaches traversing the hilly terrain between Los Angeles and Ventura.

Children pound acorns, carry firewood and make biscuits as the Chumash Indians, the Spanish and the pioneers did many years ago.

“At first we just gave them a lecture and a tour,” said Miriam Sprankling, the museum’s historian. “But we wanted the children to have a hands-on experience. Now after three hours they really feel like they were a part of the past.”

Area parents and museum enthusiasts said they have found the program invaluable.

“I think it’s extremely important that children learn the history of how their community was formed,” said Daryl Reynolds, president of the Conejo Valley Historical Society.

“Our children are growing up in a very high-tech world,” Reynolds said. “This gives them a chance to know how it was before there were computers and televisions and cars.”

Inside the museum, a tour geared for adults and children recreates the living quarters of the inn and shows displays ranging from antique irons and vacuums to historical photographs of scenes throughout the Conejo Valley.

“Most people who live in this area don’t know about this precious resource,” Sprankling said. “It’s a little jewel in our community.”