Hooray – Greenfield Village is now open for the 2011 season!

Everyone here at The Henry Ford has been so excited to welcome our members and guests back to this one-of-a-kind destination; you could feel the anticipation building all week, but especially this morning as guests gathered outside of the main gates to be one of the first people inside the Village for the year.  We’ve learned that this is a tradition for many – including Phyllis Hunt of Dearborn Heights (below), who hasn’t missed an opening day in 28 years; check out her Greenfield Village sweater worn just for the occasion!

This year, we offered a few special activities for some of our early visitors, Facebook friends and Twitter followers. As the Torch Lake steam engine pulled into the Weiser Railroad station, we noticed one especially excited little boy run to the gates for his first glimpse of the train – so we made him honorary train engineer for the engine’s first ride around Greenfield Village!

Three-year-old Myles (who had made the visit to The Henry Ford with his mom and grandparents all the way from Grand Rapids!) was even more excited to be able to climb into the cab of the steam engine and talk to some of our railroad engineers – what a cutie!

And if you’ve been to Greenfield Village before, you know that we have a very loud whistle at the Armington & Sims machinery building that sounds to mark the beginning of the day (9:30 a.m.), lunchtime (12 p.m.) and the end of the day (5 p.m.) – so we randomly selected two Facebook fans and one of our Twitter followers to blow the whistle! First up for the opening whistle was Ron Haas…

…at noon, Leah Martinez Bahr of Wyandotte and her two adorable nieces, Lilly and Ella…

…and at 5 p.m., longtime member Nancy Glodich of Plymouth!

Of course, there was plenty of action throughout the day as guests young and old rediscovered the Village…but the first guests to Firestone Farm got a real treat – a ram born right inside the barn, just minutes after we opened for the day!

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the birth of several lambs over the last few days, and it was so exciting to be able to see one born right before our eyes.

The season has just begun, and there’s so much to look forward to in the coming months at Greenfield Village – Day Out With Thomas, Civil War Remembrance, Motor Muster…and that’s just the beginning! Welcome back – I hope you can join us often!