Those stepping across the threshold of the 17 Mile House in Arapahoe County on Saturday were transported back to the 1800s.

The historical home and farm — now a museum and park owned by Arapahoe County — held an open house and wool-spinning demonstration on Saturday, allowing all those interested to come take a look at the way clothes were once made.

“It’s about showing the past so that people have a better idea of life and how families lived 160 years ago,” Karen Sears, a visitor services specialist for Arapahoe County Open Space, said of the importance of the event and 160-year-old home.

“It’s giving people just a chance to learn about the history in their back yard. How did they live? How did they create their clothes?” Sears said.

The historic site in Centennial was a rest stop and inn for waggoneers and travelers heading on the Cherokee/Smoky Hill wagon trails from Kansas. The 17-mile name comes from the distance to the intersection of Colfax and Broadway.

To this day, the home stands, becoming a place for the county to show off history-based demonstrations.

Saturday’s open house included spinning demonstrations by 40-year wool spinning expert Margaret Charlton, wool carding, dying and small looms. It all allowed families to see the process of making clothes around the time the home was built in 1866.

“I spend most every day spinning,” Charlton said, positioned behind a 25-year-old wooden spinning wheel, feeding fibers into the mechanism that some historians believe was invented as early as 500 AD.

“Before I retired, I was a child clinical psychologist, so managing stress was really important,” she added. “This is kinetic meditation for me.”

Charlton grew up a knitter and then learned to spin yarn from her mother-in-law around 40 years ago. She’s never stopped, now demonstrating and volunteering at the 17 Mile House.

While she continues the process past spinning — knitting items and custom craft projects — she says spinning remains her favorite. She often spins more yarn than she ever needs to knit, she noted.

Though the time estimate of when wool was first used for clothing widely varies — with some historians saying 3000 and 10,000 BCE — the art of spinning and knitting will never die, Charlton says.

“We have a lot of fiber guilds in Colorado and we still have younger members joining and keeping the art alive,” she said. “It’s a fun hobby and some people take to it. It will live on.”

Sears adds that young people are interested in the entire history of the area, not just knitting and wool spinning.

“Our open houses are to bring in entire families, especially young children,” Sears said of the 17 Mile House’s free activities. “Sometimes they bring the grandparents and they bring up memories of their childhood. Then the parents are here learning and the children get to try things and take things home.”

Charlton’s spinning has become one of 17 Mile House’s most popular open house activities.

“We started including her just spinning on the front porch and greeting people. It became so popular that now we decided to make it the focus of the open house,” Sears said while Charlton calmly pedaled the spinning wheel for a collection of onlookers.