The newly installed Gregg County Doctor’s Office and Animal Clinic in the Kid’s Zone at the Gregg County Historical Museum. (Michael Cavazos/Longview News-Journal)

Child-sized facades for a medical office, post office and printing office were installed this week inside the Gregg County Historical Museum’s basement.

The replica turn-of-the-20th-century facades and equipment mark a turning point for the facility, which is transforming its children’s exhibit areas into a more hands-on experience — a movement also taking place at other downtown Longview museums.

“Since (Longview World of Wonders Museum) opened and they’ve got such great math and science (exhibits), we needed to move into a hands-on history so that we can become a full hands-on district,” Gregg County Historical Museum Executive Director Lindsay Loy said Wednesday, “and Longview Museum of Fine Arts is now doing that with all of the artwork.”

Children’s exhibits have been part of the historical museum since its inception in 1984. Those exhibits, such as a log cabin room, mostly have been hands-off, as children and school tour groups walked past and observed but couldn’t touch, Loy said.

She’s eliminating those rules, starting with the development of an area aimed mostly at children between the ages of 3 and 8.

Read the rest of the story from our news partners at the Longview News-Journal here.