Who lived in this place? Who walked between these windows? Was there music and laughter? What were the sights, sounds, and smells? Pipe smoke? A crackling fire?

Do you ever wish you could see history play out before your eyes? Like a hologram, three dimensions in color playing all around you.

I first thought this while driving through the plains with my husband and kids 20+ years ago. Looking out the car window, I wished I could see herds of buffalo and Native Americans living their daily lives.

I’ve often wished for it since.

What would it be like to stand in the middle of a ball at Marie Antoinette’s Versailles? Or watch dinosaurs walk by?

It would be so cool to have that perspective—the big picture instead of our own little moment in time.

This interior window is in the officer’s quarters at Camp Rucker, a former United States Cavalry post in Cochise County, Arizona, abandoned in 1890. You can wander through several old structures. There are no blocked-off areas. You walk on creaking, broken floors, disturb bats in old closets, and ponder peeling layers of paint and adobe bricks. You’re alone, surrounded by remnants and echoes, and left with your imagination.

Camp Rucker is named after a man who drowned trying to save a friend. It was an outpost during battles with Geronimo and Apache raiders. At one point, cowboys stole six of the army’s mules here. A Tombstone posse that included Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp found the mules at the McLaury ranch, their brands altered from US to D8. The mules were never returned, and the Earps tangled with the Cowboys in the gunfight near the O.K. Corral a year and a half later. This information can be found on plaques around the site.

I wish I could witness the history. Sadly, imagination will have to do.