Portals of History- Historic Walking Tour of Jefferson City

A community partnership made up of the Jefferson City Arts Foundation, local artists, city government elected officials, the Cole County Historical Society, the Historic City of Jefferson, and local business owners have the vision to bring significant areas of Jefferson City back to life using an audio/visual walking tour app.  

Anyone with a smartphone will be able to enter a portal oh history to see and hear about the intriguing historical details of a given site in Jefferson City. The first sites to be included in the tour will be the Capitol Avenue historic area of stately homes and business. Several of the once magnificent mansions colorful pasts will be chronicled artistically through narration and some video. Local actors, historians, and videographers will work together to create and video “mini” plays for each home which will highlight one or more scripted scenes depicting past residents. The historically accurate narrations will be available through an app in the app store with an integrated map and route to follow. At that point, a researched and dramatized day in the life will be depicted through narration, picture, and video. 

This same approach will be used with additional locations, events, and persons of past significance throughout the city. Areas to be highlighted include Old Munichburg, The Foot, the original Warwick Village area and other eastside sites, Moreau Drive, memorial sites, art installations, downtown JC government buildings, and other famous Jefferson City tourist attractions.

The app creator, Historic Walking Tours, will help in every step of the way and maintain the app. The developer has several other sites across the states including New York, North Carolina, and Boston, and with two international sites in Quebec and Montreal. 

Once we have the cash on hand, we will do the following: 

1. Choose the historic sites to be added to the app. (happening now!)

2. Begin research on each of the historic sites and collaborate with both city and county historical societies.

3. Send research to Historic Walking Tour App developer. 

4. Begin marketing campaign to sell twelve Enjoy Nearby spaces to local businesses. 

5. App developer begins app construction. 

6. The app goes live on Apple App Store and Google Play Store. 

7. The app is available to enjoy by walking or biking!

After a successful past few years of cultural and historic “wins”, we hope to bring new and old traffic to these very vital sites in Jefferson City. The goal is to create new, positive impressions of how our riverside city is blossoming with progress and innovation through the lens of our rich history. We want to not only document the rich history in the beautiful historic sites for the locals but also showcase them to tourists.