Every year, Michelle Lovern takes her third grade class on a field trip back in time. The students leave their classroom at Grant Elementary and go to the Gaslamp Museum to learn about life in the 1800s. The museum is located at the William Heath Davis House and recently received a remodel.

Textbooks and lectures about Social Studies can only show children so much about history. A firsthand experience at the museum gives them an inside look at the past. The children delve into history as they tour the 163-year-old home.

“They love it,” said Lovern.

She takes her class to the museum every year because it is an accurate representation of life in the late 19^th century and fits her class’ curriculum about American settlers and San Diego’s history.

The museum gives about four to five tours a year to schoolchildren according to Jeff Guernsey, a museum docent. Each school pays a fee based on the amount of children that attend the tours.

The museum wouldn’t be running without grant money, visitor contributions and city funds.

“[The museum] would just be a structure standing here,” said Guernsey.

Tours for the children also include learning about the surrounding Gaslamp area and its historical architecture. During tours of the house, Guernsey points out the Victorian influence in the architecture. To keep them interested, he weaves in stories about surrounding buildings.

“If you just go on about architecture,” said Guernsey, “the kids will go glassy-eyed.”

One story he likes to tell the children is about San Diego’s “first zoo.” A local bar owner in the Gaslamp kept animals in the bar to attract customers.

Guernsey says he avoids telling children about the racier parts of history, such as where gambling dens and brothels were located.

He also avoids any references to ghosts. The William Heath Davis House is popular with ghost hunters. The museum hosts a paranormal investigation once a month where visitors can accompany a professional paranormal research team to look for ghosts. Guernsey doesn’t like to talk about this aspect of the house with the children because he doesn’t want to scare them.

“They have this automatic reaction when they hear the word ‘ghost.’ They’ll immediately say they’re scared and don’t want to go in,” Guernsey said.

The children also get background information about the house. They learn about the house’s unique history and William Heath Davis, the house’s original owner. Davis built the house in 1850 after wood was shipped from the east coast, due to a lack of wood in the area at the time. Davis never actually lived in the salt box-style house. Instead, it was leased to the military to house pre-Civil War officers. The house then became a county hospital and a family residence afterwards.

The eight-room house is decorated and furnished as it would have been in the 1860s and 1870s. Some rooms represent typical homes in California in that time period. Most of the rooms represent a specific time in the house’s history. For example, the first floor has a military officers’ room furnished with a small bed, military clothing, a few pictures and a schoolmaster’s desk made of California Redwood.

The constant traffic through the museum, especially large groups of children, has taken a toll on the oldest surviving structure in downtown. The city-owned building was recently granted $9,000 from City Council Community Projects funds to make improvements to the building’s interior and exterior along with the adjacent park.

The money from City Council was used to fix the house’s flooring and electricity, to install electricity in the park, for a new sign at the front of the house and to landscape the park.

Council Rep. Courtney Thomson hopes the improvements will make the museum more accessible and the park more visitor-friendly. The improvements on the house will allow museum curators to enhance displays and to educate more children about San Diego’s history.