Historic Farm Buildings
Greeting Barn
The Greeting Barn was built circa 1870. It was dismantled, moved to Amish Acres and reconstructed here after the original Restaurant Barn was destroyed by fire January 31, 1977. Alterations have been made to the original design but the stone foundations remain in tact.
Pump House
The Pump House is the original well house from the neighboring Amish farm to the north.
Orchard
Remnants of the original six-acre orchard display many old fashioned varieties of fruit trees including sheep's nose and rusty coat apples. The tin cans in the trees are filled with syrup to attract insects away from the fruit.
Garden
The kitchen vegetable garden is interlaced with rows of annual flowers to draw insects away from the vegetables. Herbs are cut, dried, and then used for seasoning.
Food Drying House
The Food Drying House was used to preserve vegetables and fruits prior to the adaptation of refrigeration and canning. A small stove in the center of the structure keeps the interior warm so that food being dried will dehydrate more quickly.
Smoke House
Similar to the drying house's function, the smokehouse is used to preserve meats. A smoldering fire in the center, usually of hickory or fruit tree bark, smokes the meat as it hangs on the hooks in the charred beams.
Lye Kiln
Lye was made in a barrel kiln by layering ashes from the fires with straw. Rain water would then leach through these layers to produce lye which is used for making soap from lard.
Brick Bake Oven
This original brick bake oven was fired for baking once a week. A fire is built in the baking cavity and as it heats to proper temperatures, the walls burn clean. The coals are then scraped into a hole at the front of the oven and pans of bread dough, pies, or other pastries replace the coals and are baked by the heat built up in the bricks.
Root Cellar
Root cellars maintain a constant cool temperature year around providing the prefect storage environment for potatoes, carrots, turnips, and other rooted vegetables.
Original House
The original house was constructed in 1874 by Christian Stahly, the Nappanee area's first Amish Settler, for his son Moses. It included two rooms, one for the family and the other for storing milk, cheese and other food.
Main House
The main house was built in 1893 by Noah Nissley who was Moses Stahly's father-in-law. The house was a duplicate of Noah's house in Ohio that had burnt in 1892.
Windmill
The windmill and well did not replace the open well under the back porch until the 1920s because it was considered too modern. An underground storage tank supplies both the barn's water trough and the house's drinking water.
Open Well
The open stone well under the back porch provided all the families water prior to the windmill by way of a wooden hand pump. Its overflow kept the trough in the milk house full of cool water. Typhoid was eradicated when use of open wells was abandoned.
Grossdaad Haus
This house was moved to the farm in the early 1900s for the Nissleys to retire to upon turning the farm's responsibilities over to the next generation.
Schwietzer Bank Barn
The 40 x 80 foot Schwietzer bank barn was built in 1876 from hand-hewed timber cut from this farm. The threshing floors and mows are in the upper level, the stables and milking stalls in the lower with the corn crib and wagon shed at the end.
Hay Sling
The hay sling was used before bailing to unload loose hay from the wagons to the mows. The hay track made both sides accessible for the sling.
Wagon Shed
The wagon shed is a replica of those surrounding the Blosser Old Order Mennonite Church. It houses the buggies and wagons, including a horse drawn school bus and an Amish church bench wagon.
Threshing Floor
The threshing floor has high sides and doors on both sides. Before threshing machines, bundles of grain were stacked along the sides, thrashed on the floor by flails, and separated by throwing them in the air on a windy day so that the heavier grain could be caught in a winnowing pan.
Granary
The granary is normally constructed above the overshoot of a bank barn to keep it high and dry. Intricate chutes provide control of grain mixing to the box below.
Corn Crib
Corn cribs were usually built at the side of the wagon shed and kept off the ground as protection from rodents and moisture.
Hog House
The hog house is located close to the corn crib for convenience as hogs were fed half of the corn crop grown. Indiana remains the third largest corn and pork producer in the United States.
Blacksmith Shop
Chauncy Thomas was the owner of this country blacksmith shop during the late 1800s. It was moved here intact from six miles south of Nappanee. An account ledger from 1916 found in the shop showed Mr. Thomas charged 80 cents to shoe a horse then. Today the rate is over $25.
Ice House
Ice houses were used to store ice cut from ponds and lakes before mechanical refrigeration. Inside the crudely insulated house the ice was tightly packed in layers of sawdust. The building is elevated to prevent the foundation from rotting and make wagon loading easier.
Maple Sugar Camp
The Maple Sugar Camp was moved here from the area and is used to boil down sap water into maple syrup in the early spring.
Sorghum Press
The juice from the sorghum cane is pressed through the rollers which are powered by a horse pulling the sweep arm in a continual circle. It is then boiled down to molasses.
Sawmill
This sawmill is representative of the many mills that sprang up around Nappanee as the area was first settled. Timber was so abundant that hundreds of trees, many walnut, were burned to clear the land because they were not worth the cost of "harvesting."
Broom Shop
Broom shops similar to this one are still operated commercially in the area. Broom corn used in the production of brooms is grown in the display crop area of this farm.
Joni Burkholder Mint Still
At the turn of the century, Indiana led all states in mint production. Stills like this one, which was moved here from 1 1/2 miles south were used to distill the potent oils.
Walnut Street House
This house was moved to Amish Acres from Walnut Street in Nappanee. It is representative of the early village houses that lined the dirt streets in the new town which followed the coming of the B&O railroad in 1874.
Restaurant Barn
The restaurant barn is constructed from two bank barns, which were both originally built the mid 1870s. The front barn, comes from two miles east of here, the dining room from near Lake Wawasee.
One-Room German School House
The oldest Amish one-room school house in the Nappanee area was acquired by Amish Acres for relocation, preservation, and restoration. It sat less than a mile from the farm since the 1870s or earlier when it was built. It has been moved to the historic farmstead, preserved, restored, and used for interpretation to school groups. The school joins the original horse-drawn school bus that area children rode to and from school.
Soda Fountain (Smid House)
This 20 x 30 foot log house was built by Reverend R.J. Smid, a Dutch Mennonite who immigrated from the village of Balk in the Netherlands on May 9, 1853. From Mrs Smid's diary, "On November 3, 1853, at last, with God's blessing, we moved into our house, even though it was still in bad condition to live in."
W.H. Best & Sons Meat Market
This 18 x 19 foot two story log house was built circa 1860. It was moved from its original location on highway 6, twelve miles east of here in 1973.
Cider & Grist Mill
This cider mill stood in two locations before being moved here in the early 1900s. It was used each fall to press cider from the orchards of neighboring Amish farmers. The press has a listed capacity of 3,000 gallons per day. The stone grist mill was added by Amish Acres.
Farm Implements
The farm implements that are displayed in the barn yard and inside the Schwietzer bank barn are all made circa 1910 or earlier. All the machinery is horse drawn.
Bee Hives
Bee Hives are used by area farmers to provide a home for colonies of honey bees, the bees in turn provide the farmer with a way to pollinate orchards and gallons of delicious honey.
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