Pioneer Village Trip
We traveled to Kearney and Minden Nebraska June 8th through 10th 2007, The primary reason was to see Harold Warp's Pioneer Village.
They say on their website, "You have to see it to believe it..." Their right.
The largest private collection of Americana anywhere. The Pioneer Village complex is 28 buildings on 20 acres (3 city blocks) housing over 50,000 irreplaceable items of historical value, restored to operating order, arranged in groups and also in the chronological order of their development.
There are 12 historic buildings around the circular "green". There's a Frontier Fort, a real honest-to-goodness Pony Express Station, an Iron Horse (Train for you younsters), and a home made of sod (Grass & Dirt for you younsters). There's a general store and a toy store, chock full of all the goods from yesteryear.
An original art collection including Currier and Ives prints, Jackson paintings, and the largest single collection of Rogers statues.
You can ride a priceless steam carousel, see historic flying machines and marvel at 100's of antique tractors.
See a 1902 Cadillac and a 1903 Ford, both designed by Henry Ford, plus several hundred other antique cars & Trucks, all displayed in their order of development.
Watch a broom maker create and explain the history and makeup of the everyday broom, Watch and listen as Cotton is spun into yarn or thread for clothes, or watch as the thread is used to make the clothes. Think what it would be like to have to spin your own thread to make your own clothes, to have a daily turn at the spinning wheel as one of your daily chores before bed at sundown or first thing when you got up in the morning before school.
Below you will find the 400 plus pictures we took, broken into 6 separate albums. We started around 9:00 and left at 12:30 not nearly enough time to see and enjoy everything on display. Walking around the buildings and displays, there was somthing new around each corner, making it an adventure to explore the past.
And I challenge anyone over 40 to go in and not see hundreds if not thousands of items from your past. To look back and have fond memories of the purple couch that you parents might have had or the rumble seat on the back of the car, to see that 1963 Mercury Comet that you once had, or the 57 chevrolet that you always wanted. Sit down and try and think of how many cars you have had in your life, See how many of them you can find in the pictures, There are dozens of benches in the various areas where you can sit and rest or ponder the past. To remember times and possibly loves long since gone. For most people they only see these things in movies, but It's so different to see in person things that don't exist anymore except in our memories.
So look over the pictures, and realize I missed a couple buildings and thousands of pictures, Let the pictures peak your interest then plan your own trip to see what I Missed.
Pioneer Village 138 East Highway 6, Minden, Nebraska 68959 (800) 445-4447 or (308) 832-1181
This page was last updated on June 11, 2007