Ahead of Passport to History Month, the Atlas Cement Company Memorial Museum hosted an open house at 1401 Laubach Ave., Northampton, June 25.

Museum guide Larry Oberly walked visitors through the history of the “Cement Belt,” which includes Northampton, Bath, Nazareth and surrounding communities, where the manufacturing of Portland cement was in its heyday during the 19th through 20th centuries.

Oberly also spoke about how local businesses like harness making flourished as suppliers to the cement industry. One prominent artifact from that era is a plaster of Paris model of a horse that Nazareth harnessmaker Calvin Bartholomew fitted his product to at his Washington Avenue shop.

One visitor to the museum when it opened in 1998 was an elderly woman. “As soon as she saw the horse, she stopped dead in her tracks,” Oberly related. She told him, “I grew up on Washington Avenue and I had to walk by his window four times a day to go to school.”

“I knew and loved that horse very much because we would watch him working in the window around it, and wondered, my goodness, I never had a horse in my living room,” Oberly said as he quoted her.

A retired Nazareth Area School District teacher, Oberly taught history, government and economics. He volunteered when approached by his friend, museum curator Ed Pany, a retired Northampton history teacher.

Located adjacent to the Northampton Borough Hall, the Atlas Cement Company Memorial Museum is open the second and fourth Sunday of each month from May through September, from 1 to 3 p.m. Information: northamptonboro.com/atlas-museum

Passport to History Month celebrates Lehigh Valley’s local history throughout July. This site and the Siegfried Railroad Station and Museum in Northampton are participating.

The Moravian Historical Society is hosting an event at 1740-1743 Whitefield House in Nazareth and the Lower Saucon Township Historical Society is holding an open house at the Lutz-Franklin Schoolhouse in Hellertown as part of Passport to History Month.

Participating historic and cultural sites in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding counties are opening their doors to the public with free tours, activities, and programs for visitors of all ages through July 30. Lehigh Valley Passport to History: lvhistory.org.