The disappointing results of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Civics and U.S. History have further fueled the call for consistent, high-quality social studies instruction. The response by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) highlighted the imperative for early grades, claiming "the lack of a solid and daily foundation in social studies learning beginning in early childhood and elementary grades" was a key contributor to declining performance. In this article, the author posits that local history is an effective approach to powerful social studies when it builds from children's prior knowledge in personal and tangible ways. The author describes an inquiry approach that uses experiences of children who lived in Beaumont Mill Village to answer the question, "Did children in the past live like me?"