Montgomery Parks Debuts Augmented Reality Experience

Oakley Cabin African American Museum and Park is a living history museum on Brookeville Road in Olney that interprets the story of those who lived in this rural roadside community in the 19th and 20th centuries. The cabin is one of three originally built to house enslaved laborers on the surrounding Oakley Farm.After emancipation, it became the center of a community of free Black families who worked mostly as farm laborers, laundresses, and tradespeople.

The augmented reality experience debuting at Oakley Cabinoffers visitors an innovative look at that history. Using a mobile device, visitors can scan QR codes that provide audio tours with details of the community’s history while interacting with three-dimensional models and objects on their devices. 

“Oakley Cabin African American Museum and Park is the perfecthistoric site to launch this digital heritage program,” said Cassandra Michaud, Montgomery Parks’ cultural resources stewardship supervisor. “The addition of the technology will really allow our guests to envision what the site looked like when it was a thriving community in the late 1800s and 1900s.”  

The AR component will complement live interpretive programming already taking place at Oakley Cabin. Docent-led tours offer the public and school groups a look at the culture and traditions of the Oakley community, which heavily influenced its surrounding communities. Oakley Cabin African American Museum and Park is open the second and fourth Saturdays of the month from April through October.

“It is incredible to see augmented reality (AR) technologies become a part of the community space,” said TEBS Department Director and Montgomery County CIO Gail M. Roper.  “I saw it impact other cities and I knew that Montgomery County would be a great place to host AR historical experiences.”

The AR experiences were developed by Montgomery Parks in collaboration with the Montgomery County Department of Technology and Enterprise Business Solution’s (TEBS) XR Montgomery team and the University of Maryland Historic Preservation Program, part of the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.