Occoquan uses new technology to tell an old story

Occoquan Mayor Earnie Porta has found a new high tech way to tell the town’s history.

“I am hoping there will be a little bit of a buzz about this,” Porta said.

This week he installed the first of a planned series of Quick Response or QR codes in front of the Pink Bicycle Tea Room on Commerce Street in Occoquan.

These are similar to UPC barcodes, commonly found on store items, but they can store more information. And they are easy for anyone to use who has a current generation camera cell phone.

Depending on the phone, the user simply points the camera at the QR code or takes a picture of it. A QR reader application may be needed.

When the code is read by the phone, it connects through the Internet to the Occoquan Historical Society website page that contains a historic photograph and explanatory text.

The one in front of the Pink Bicycle Tea Room will educate users about the Shanklin family home—the current location of the tea room – and the adjacent Occoquan Methodist Episcopal Church.

QR codes are common in Japan and gaining popularity in the United States. Porta said he recently read an article on them and realized that they might have useful applications for cost-effectively communicating information about Occoquan’s past.

“I decided I would give it a shot,” Porta said.

“Occoquan has a rich and interesting history and we use a number of traditional means to convey this to visitors—more than a dozen town historical markers, several county historical markers, a Civil War Trails display, an Occoquan Historical Society display, and national and state register plaques,” he said.

Such markers, however, entail considerable expense, and in some cases considerable space.

“In a small town like Occoquan it’s not practical, either financially or in terms of available space, to display as much historical information as we would like using traditional signs and markers,” he said.

Porta believes that QR codes may be one way to address that challenge.

“I don’t want anyone to think these are going to replace traditional historic markers,” he said. “This is really just supplemental. It’s just one more way to access the data.”

Over the next couple of weeks Porta plans to install additional QR codes in front of the Occoquan Town Hall, by the Mill House Museum and in Mamie Davis Park.

During this testing phase, he is, in a limited fashion, telling people about them through his e-newsletter and the town’s printed newsletter in order to gage how receptive visitors and town residents are to the codes.

“I don’t think there will be any objections to them,” he said. “They are so unobtrusive.”

If the feedback is positive, he will increase his advertisement to include information on historical society’s website as well as at the Mill House Museum and the Prince William County Visitors Center in town.

“I will also probably put it up on the news group and Facebook pages because people who tend to use those sites tend to have these sort of phones,” Porta said.

One of the really exciting things about using this technology, Porta believes, is its flexibility.

“If you want to update a photograph, correct errors, or simply provide more current or relevant information—something that is almost inevitable when you are dealing with history,” Porta said, “you don’t have to go to all the expense of replacing the marker or plaque. You just update the web page to which the QR barcode links.”

It is also simple and inexpensive.

He created the barcode using free software. Then he took the 2½- by 2½-inch code, laminated it and put it under plexiglass. He mounted it on a 4- by 4-inch post.

Total cost: $5.

Porta said he is unsure how many people will even know what they are, but expects interest in them will grow.

“At the start. I imagine there will be relatively few people who will use them but I think a couple of years from now people will use them a lot more regularly.”

Staff writer Aileen Streng can be reached at 703-530-3907.