RACINE - The city's history is no longer a mystery for a group of young history detectives who worked last week to dig up Racine's past. As part of the History Mystery Camp, Racine History Mysteries II: The Art of Artifacts, the young people worked with archivists, librarians, artists and museum and library staff as they explored the Racine Heritage Museum, Public Library, Art Museum and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts.

They learned facts and heard stories about some of Racine's most influential and important historical industries and local celebrities. Then they wrote their own stories, creating one-of-a-kind books. They presented those books to their families on Friday, at a special authors' corner event at Wustum.

Camper Tommy Scott, 10, a student at Schulte Elementary School, created a book entitled "The Civil War Story," which tells how to make a Civil War musket. Scott's interest in the Civil War comes from "my great, great, great, great, great-grandfather who was in it," he said. "I went on Ancestors.com to find out if I had someone in the war. I wanted to find out more about him. He was a captain."

Scott talked about his book Thursday morning at Wustum, while his fellow campers decoupaged boxes to store their books. The boxes fit in with the camp's theme of historical mysteries, said Wustum's education assistant Susan Silver. "The kids are writing stories about artifacts and some of the books in our collection have special boxes or cases," Silver said.

To make the special boxes for their books, the campers used P'zone pizza boxes donated by Pizza Hut. The campers tore strips of paper from brown paper grocery bags, crumpled the strips, then used them to cover the boxes. They coated the strips with a combination of Elmer's glue and water to decoupage the boxes to make them look old, Silver said. When they dry, the coverings will look like old leather.

The final product will have a repousse name plate with their book's title or an illustration, Silver said. Repousse is the art of embossing or pressing shapes into metal to create a design.

This is the second year for the mystery camp program, said Tricia Blasko, interim curator of education at Wustum. "The kids learn a lot about Racine's background and culture," Blasko said. "They learned about Horlick's Malted Milk, Mitchell Wagon and Frank Lloyd Wright."

During the week-long program, nine campers ages 9 to 13 attended sessions at the Racine Heritage Museum, the Racine Public Library and Wustum, and took a walking tour of Downtown Racine.

"They went to D P Wigley so the kids were able to see what they do there," Blasko said. "They're learning local history. It fits in with our theme, artifacts, digging up their heritage. They worked with a local author Marcie Eanes (Wednesday). They picked out their story lines and she helped them put their stories together."

Riley Brunner, 9, got the inspiration for her book, "Trip to Ellis Island," at the Heritage Museum.

"Our teacher read us an Ellis Island book. My book is about a family who lives in Ireland who were moving to America because of the potato famine," Brunner said. "I wanted to know more about it (the famine) and the people who moved because of it."

Brunner, who attends St. Rita School, personalized her story using the names of friends and family for her characters.

In the book the character Abigail is named for her cousin "who is really nice," Brunner said. "I named the younger sister, Katlin, after a girl at my school because she's really pretty. I gave the parents my parents' names, Stephanie and Dan, because I couldn't think of anything else."

Abby Pruitt, 11, another of the young authors, said she was writing about herself in "Blast Off."

"I'm writing about myself when I'm older when I'm an astronaut," said Pruitt, who just graduated from Bull Fine Arts. "It's sort of based on Laurel Clark. I thought it would be interesting, although I don't know what I want to be."