Living History Farms is an interactive outdoor history museum, which educates and connects all peoples to the many stories of Midwestern rural heritage. Living History Farms is proud to offer a dedicated education department and award-winning programs for K schools and homeschooling families. Come experience your favorites again and again, and get the best value for your money, with a membership to Living History Farms.
Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa, tells the amazing story of how Iowans transformed the fertile prairies of the Midwest into the most productive farmland in the world. While at the acre open-air museum, visitors travel at their own pace through historical time periods spanning years. On-site interpreters provide a unique learning environment of seasonal activities and demonstrations. Living History Farms is such a unique opportunity to experience life outside of our time period.
Thank you for providing such wonderful experiences! The farming techniques practiced by the Ioway Indians in pre-dated written history and varied somewhat from European methods. Ioway farmers raised corn, beans and squash. On a mid-summer visit to the Pioneer Farm, the farm staff might be in the fields cultivating corn and potatoes, or harvesting wheat, the three main crops on the Iowa frontier.
The town of Walnut Hill re-creates a bustling frontier community with craftsmen and merchants in several shops, businesses and homes along the town's main street. Near the town, visitors will find a country schoolhouse, as well as an upperclass Victorian home and adjoining barn.
In fields at the Horse-Powered Farm, Percheron draft horses pull a variety of machinery to plant, cultivate, and harvest the farm's three main crops of corn, oats, and hay. There are also vegetable gardens to be tended and household chores to be done.
