2013-05-17

This morning we drove down to Harold Warp’s Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska.  Mr. Warp grew up in the area, and decided to create a museum of Nebraska life in 1950.  He began to purchase old buildings to be moved to Minden.  In addition to the buildings, equipment, etc. that he purchased, people began to donate.  The museum opened in 1953.  It is not a highly polished, docent led living history museum like so many others that we have seen, but the collections are amazing. 

Buildings include an original Pony Express Relay Station (complete with a Buffalo Bill Cody original saddle), the original Elm Creek stockade (jail cell that could be used in a building, or left out in the public square for people to see the inmates), an historic country church, general store, sod house, one-room school house (Mr. Warp purchased at auction the school house that he had attended), an antique toy collection and a blacksmith shop.  Included were the books, maps equipment, and etc.

One of the best building collections was the one of rooms in homes through time.  There were bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens set up for every 30 years beginning with 1830 to the 1950s.  If you want to see how people lived, slept or cooked in any generation beginning with 1830 to modern times, this is the place.

Other collections include old automobiles (Studebaker, Ford, Chevrolet, Chrysler, and discontinued lines), antique farm equipment and tractors (horse drawn, steam, gas and diesel), and earlier transportation modes like carriages, locomotives, etc.

They even have an old RV trailer.  It is a 1937 Vagabond Travel Trailer.  In another building is a homemade motorhome built by Mr. Wendell Turner on a 1939 White Truck.  He and his wife traveled in it from 1953 to 1956.  I took pictures of the descriptions, and they are included, but I do not know if you will be able to enlarge them enough to read her log of their trips.

If you are ever in the area and are interested in pioneer life in Nebraska, it is well worth the stop.  The village is 12 miles south of I-80 at exit 279, and is located at 138 E US Highway 6, Minden, NE,

Hugs, and Type at You Later.