“Pioneer Village” - a heritage worth preserving

This is an experience, not just a museum - authentic “Americana” heritage. It’s such a shame that it’s missed by so many people rushing by on the I-80, just 12 miles north of Minden,  The town was once on a major US Highway running east to west on Route 34 which ran for 1122 miles from Chicago through Nebraska to the Rockies in Colorado which brought hundreds of tourists weekly to visit it.  

We were astonished by the thousands of articles displayed from about the 1830’s to the 1980’s.  The second day is free of charge, and we needed two days to see it. 

Harold Warp, the founder, wrote: “In a mere 120 years....man progressed from open hearths, grease lamps and ox carts to television, super-sonic speed and atomic power.  We have endeavored to show you the actual development of this astounding progress.....”.  

He became wealthy through making plastics when he moved to Chicago. His factory produced the first plastic garbage bags and is still in business today.  He was an amazing collector and set up this wonderful village for people to remember what it was like to live through those hard times.  He dedicated it “To the Memory of our Pioneering Parents and others like them”, such as his Norwegian parents who had been true homesteaders. Harold Warp was one of 12 children born to John and his wife, Helga. 

Twelve of the 24 buildings are situated around a large circular, grassy area where families can picnic or just sit awhile. 

One of these was the General Store, stocked with some items we recognized from years ago, old butter churns, tins with familiar labels like Calumet Baking Soda, old cash registers, antique scales and a multitude of other items like animal traps and bushel baskets for fruit or corn.  Hanging from the ceiling were numerous lanterns, buckets, an old cranberry picker and other various odds and sods.  In the center was the most important item, the pot bellied stove, the only source for heating and keeping the coffee pot warm.

 We stepped inside one of the last Pony Express relay stations - a small cabin containing Buffalo Bill’s genuine, beautifully carved leather saddle. The photo shows a hand-made replica of the “mochila,” a leather cover for the saddle with four padlocked pockets for the mail at each corner, “which was left loose so it could be lifted off quickly and thrown on the saddle of a fresh horse that stood ‘rarin to go’”.

Our tour included an old white church, a livery stable, a sod house of the type that Harold and his family lived in when he was young and the one-room school house that he had attended as a boy with the original desks and books and ubiquitous wood stove in the center. We climbed on the actual steam locomotive that passed by his father’s farm as he worked on the land, never dreaming, he wrote, that one day he would own it!

But that wasn’t all! There were hundreds of antique vehicles, one being an original A Model Ford given to him by his friend, Henry Ford.  There was an amphibious car and a perfect copy of the Wright Brothers first plane and wagons, such as the Conestoga, Yellowstone (photo) and Wells Fargo Stage Coach, tractors and other farm equipment including a cotton picker, all in excellent condition and well maintained.  Most of the Yellowstone wagons had been sold, rotted or burned - the one restored and shown here was found in 1967 after a 15 year search. When the wagons were running from 1880 to 1916 according to the placard, they needed four horses to pull one and the tour of Yellowstone Park took 5 days and cost $40 including meals and lodging

The Village including the campground, Motel and restaurant entirely self supporting, a non-profit educational venture and it’s income is derived mainly from visitors. There’s little money to maintain such a vast project and keep the “oldest steam powered carousel in existence” still turning, or to see the blacksmith, glass blower or spinner at work. The one craftsman we did see was the brilliant broom-maker called Pat Haight, (photo) from whom we bought two small whisk brooms for gifts.  

The only thing that really let it down was the cafe on the green, which was really run down and had the worst food we’ve tasted in some time unless you like bratwurst that’s been cooked until the skin tastes like wood and the inside like sawdust.  The restaurant, was good although we only ate there once.

This photo shows just one of the long, empty north/south roads roads in Nebraska - they’re a joy to drive on and they’re not all flat, some are gently rolling like this on Route 10 which we drove on from the Kansas border to Minden.

A Teardrop Convention

Teardrops are the cutest little trailers we’ve seen.  They really are tiny and there they were at the Pioneer Village Campground we stayed at in Minden NE.  It was a rainy Saturday afternoon when we arrived and the teardrops all left the next morning, so I didn’t get many close-ups or talk to their owners.  

They originated in the 1930’s and are still manufactured today and can be pulled by  almost any vehicle.  Many of them have  been restored or built from scratch and seem to be well loved although the whole camper is only about 4’ high and 8’ long, so the doors are shorter than most adults who have to crawl into their beds.  The backs of them open to expose a little, well-planned kitchen area.

One we saw, owned by an older couple, had an extra trailer to pull their own porta-potty hut!  Another even had it’s own air conditioner.  For people who love camping but don’t want to set up a tent, they’re ideal and the camaraderie of the campers was evident.  As they pulled out, one of the best bumper stickers we’ve seen, said “I go where I’m towed”.

An Opera House in Red Cloud, NE

Opera and play houses in small town America are found throughout the country, many of them built in the 1800’s - this one from 1885. Not just for staging operas or plays by traveling companies, they were used much like the town halls of today, for the social and cultural life of the town. The one in Red Cloud was restored in 2003 mainly through the vision and fund raising efforts of a doctor’s wife, Mildred Bennett, and other volunteers.

The ground floor (known as the first floor in the U.S., which always bothers me when I’m going down in a lift (elevator) because I’m always looking for a G instead of 1st) This building was once a large hardware store. On the upper level is the opera house, still much in use today. In the restrooms (where we don’t go to rest) are two evacuation signs, one for fire and the other which outlines a plan of how to reach safety in the event of a tornado!

This unique building and several others in the town, belong to the Willa Cather Foundation, an institution set up to commemorate the life and works of the author. The ground floor of the opera house contains a bookstore dedicated to this world famous author, who is also a Pulitzer prize winner. She is regarded as one of America’s best known classical authors. I’d never heard of her until we reached Nebraska, and read a historic roadside marker set amongst the beautiful prairie grasses of the country she frequently wrote about. It was at the same place I heard the unusual bird song of the meadowlark, Nebraska’s state bird.

Howard and I toured several of

the buildings that she was associated with apart from the Opera House; her childhood home and the ornate Garber Bank (photos), with a wonderful tour guide called Dorothy, who was a very young looking 84 year old and a volunteer at the Foundation. Having read one of Cather’s books, she wrote vivid, detailed descriptions of the rooms and people and affairs during the time that she lived there. She must have had a wonderful memory, because she was just nine when her family moved to Red Cloud, which was the setting of many of her books. It was an amazing experience for me to have stood in her attic bedroom with the furnishings exactly as she described it in one of her books, “The Song of the Lark”.

We so enjoy stopping by these small towns and have visited a number of them during the past two years. Many of them still have trolley buses (this town used to have one) such as those in Guthrie in Oklahoma, Jacksonville in Oregon and Eureka Springs in Arkansas. It’s a great way to tour the towns and learn about the history, usually from well-informed tour guides.

All you can eat for only $6.65 each! (About £4.00)

Where’s this possible? Well in historic Red Cloud, Nebraska, less than 20 miles from the Kansas border. At Cutters’ Café next to an old Hotel, we chose from an array of main dishes apart from the soup, bread and desserts and even iced tea or coffee which were included! It was obviously a favorite place for many customers who were well known to the owner.

Red Cloud is another of those lovely old towns with wide, red brick roads, flat roofed buildings lining the main street, and old lamp posts. Although it was named after Chief Red Cloud, the famous Sioux chief, it was thought that he never came through this area.

The train depot was one of it’s most important assets and during its heyday, about 8 trains per day passed through Red Cloud. It once brought settlers to the town and the building now belongs to the NE State Historical Society as do many other structures in the town including the Opera House.

Friendship at the Excel Service Center, KS - 14th June

We feel so lucky to have any problems fixed under warranty, when so many RV manufacturers have gone out of business this past year.

The service center is extraordinary, with two good sized lounges, both with a TV and large, comfy chairs, several tables, a computer with free wi-fi plus card games or puzzles for their customers.  Not only that but they have two very clean bathrooms each with a shower and one with a washer and dryer.  Howard and I feel that it must be one of the best RV centers around the country. 

During the day, our RV was pulled into one of the 8 service bays, at 06:30 (not usually a time we’re awake and certainly not up and about) and if it was pushed out for the night, we were able to stay there.  If for some reason, a 5th wheel has to stay in the shop for extensive work then the customers are put up for one or more nights at the quaintly furnished B and B nearby and Excel pay for it!  Where does one receive service like that nowadays? 

Making friends in unusual places

You’d think that a parking lot is not the ideal place to meet people, but we’ve met some interesting people at the Service Center.  Of course, we all have one thing in common, an Excel 5th wheel.

On a Sunday afternoon, we met several other couples.  Jerry and Judy, from North Carolina were both enthusiastic photographers and took some great photos of the grasslands and countryside and the old wooden cabin where the poem “Home, Home on the Range” was written and which is now the official State Song.  This is one of their photos and if you look closely at the sign, you'll see a buffalo and deer etched on the top.

Jerry and Judy kindly copied all their photos onto our computer, so we have some excellent pics of the cabin and prairie lands. We had such good conversations with them and now correspond via email.

Bill and Myra from Roanoke, Virginia, have two pet cats and needed to find a boarding place for them, so headed out to the country to find the nearest Veterinary office.  

Unfortunately, we’d had a lot of rain some days before and the country roads were covered in white limestone dust and mud and their truck was coated with it, but Bill wouldn’t return to us until he’d had the truck washed.  However, Myra had taken several photos of the evidence before it disappeared. We were all greatly amused by the story, especially when we heard that the vet’s office didn’t take animals for boarding and they then found a cattery a few yards down the road from us.

The following Monday, after spending almost a week in Nebraska, we met a fun English couple, Kate and David Pilgrim, who were touring the States during summer for six months, all that their Visas would allow.  We enjoyed visiting with them immensely - they had both been Police Officers in London and at one time spent 6 years living on a boat and taken it on a trip through France. They don’t write a blog but pen a newsletter from them both for family and friends, which is very amusing and we’re now followers too after requesting one.  Although this was not their first long term trip to the US, it was so interesting for me to get a newer perspective of how the English perceive the American way of life because I’ve been here for a few years and don’t have that fresh viewpoint anymore.

At one time or another, we had breakfast at the “Second Cup Café” with each of the couples we met.  You can just see it on the left side of the photo of the town.  This café is quite a hub in Smith Center.  In the early morning, the older men meet first and after they leave, the women arrive for a various function or other, but it's always busy for breakfast. 

We went there for Sunday lunch and it was packed. The Americans rarely sit with strangers at a table, but it was so busy, we joined another couple, a pastor and his wife and had most of our meal with them.  The pastor held hands with his wife and said grace before they ate - a custom, which seems to be common here when people eat out. Because it’s a small town, most people know each other and another couple joined us after they left. This particular lady had just retired from teaching for over thirty years.  She invited us to “hang out” on their porch even if they weren’t there, as a change from sitting in our RV.  This is typical of many of the strangers we’ve met in the US, inviting us over shortly after we’ve met.  She also had relatives in England and so was interested in talking to us.

Being an agricultural community, auctions of farm and other equipment are held sometimes every two weeks.  It was a shame we missed one; if you’ve ever seen an American auction on the telly, you’ll know that they speak so fast it’s hard to keep up.  They had tractors, old cars, very old tools, saddles and tack, squirrel cages, cob forks and dump rakes!   See what I mean? Another thing that intrigued us was the music we heard on the streets.  It was the local radio station broadcasting music through the loud speakers attached to lamp posts along the main street - it probably warns of tornados too.