Orphan Train rolls into Cd'A and PF

The Orphan Train movement, a largely unknown chapter in American history, will be featured in a presentation today and tomorrow in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls.

Presenters, novelist and humanities scholar Alison Moore and singer/songwriter Phil Lancaster, combine audiovisual elements, historical fiction and musical ballads to bring the movement to public awareness. Orphan trains were a charitable movement that “placed out” 250,000 orphaned, abandoned or homeless children between 1854 and 1929 to rural families in the American west.

The multi-media presentation will be hosted by the Coeur d’Alene library, 702 Front Ave., today at 6:30 p.m., and Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at the Post Falls library, 821 N. Spokane St.

These programs are made possible by grants from the Idaho Humanities Council, the state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the Friends of the Coeur d’Alene Public Library and the Friends of the Community Library Network.