FAIRHOPE, Ala. — For a kid, going to a museum ranks right up there with brushing teeth and cleaning the bedroom. There are big halls you can’t run around in, filled with too-quiet people telling you to “hush” and not touch anything.

BOR-ing, indeed. Maybe just having them clean their room would be an improvement in their eyes.

But a visit to the Fairhope Museum of History is a little different. The museum, at 24 N. Section St., encourages people to touch the exhibits. There’s a display of vintage lawnmowers that were manufactured in the city hanging from the ceiling. There are dolls the children who were among Fairhope’s original settlers owned.

Running is still a no-no, but there is plenty for youngsters and adults to look at, read, touch and experience.

Hey, maybe this is going to be fun.

That’s just what Donnie Barrett, the museum director, wants.

“We want people to touch,” he said, adding that anything especially rare or fragile is securely locked in the museum’s vaults or is behind glass.

That “hands-on” experience extends to the “jail” in the museum. Who needs running when you can lock your brother or sister in a real jail cell? The museum was originally Fairhope City Hall, and served as the municipality’s police station for a while afterward.

“We kept the two original cells,” said Barrett. “We have the cells decorated the same way they would have been when it was used as a jail. We let the kids into the cells and lock them in. If the youngsters can get the keys (kept tantalizingly close to the cells) and get out, they get a certificate.”

Would-be jailbreakers beware. Barrett says that getting to those keys is not as easy as it looks. But it can be done. And parents who would love to leave their darlings there should know that the museum staff has plenty of extra keys and can free a trapped child easily.

The museum also boasts a 1935 fire truck, the Eastern Shore’s first, which youngsters can look at and also sit in the driver’s seat.

Barrett likes to open the double doors on the Section Street side of the museum to let passersby see the truck and the apparatus inside.

“It makes people stop and do a double-take,” he said. “And then they want to come in.”

That suits Barrett down to the ground. The museum is open Tuesday–Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and admission is free.

“We want to tell Fairhope’s unique history,” explained Barrett. “We are preserving items that would be lost on a regular basis.”

For docent Eloise Rogers, seeing the displays change is getting a peek at history.

“You never know what you are going to see next,” she said.

Theresa Knox of Fairhope is a home-schooled student who takes some of her history lessons at the museum.

“We have talked of many things,” she said of her lessons with Barrett. “He knows lots of Fairhope history and about archeological studies.”