New Dawn on the Prairie & Railroad Car

Two adjacent galleries offer historical interpretation on subjects which have a locally interconnected past: Learn about the development of agriculture and the railroad on the newly settled prairie. The Homestead Act of 1862 enticed people to move west. In the very late 1870s – early 1880s, settlement of homesteads and towns began in Brown County. The significant regional influx of population, called the Dakota Boom, was driven by several factors: the construction of railroads (including the establishment of railroad towns), advertisements for affordable land, and several years of successful crops.

Homesteads and Agriculture: A small sod or tarpaper shanty, about 10 x 12 feet in size, was the first house typically built by a settler on a newly claimed homestead. A historic sod block from a farm near Herried, SD and a replica structure covered in tarpaper are included in the exhibit. Photos of early prairie shanties show the various building materials that were used and include a historic image of a dugout house. Once they were established, families would build a more permanent (wood-frame) home that might include a room like the turn-of-the-century farmhouse kitchen shown in the gallery. Artifacts seen in the kitchen include a cookstove, an ice box, a free-standing kitchen cupboard unit, and much more from the museum collection.

A timeline (1830s – 2000s) spanning the east side of the gallery provides information about the history of agriculture, farming in the local area, and population changes in Brown County. Farm chores, in the early days, were done by hand or with the assistance of a team of horses or mules. Horse-drawn breaking plows and hand-held grain cradles were the tools of planting and harvest. Early threshing equipment was horse-powered, and later transitioned to equipment powered by steam engines. Threshing rigs traveled the countryside, and this work was often a communal affair. Tractors like the Farm-All, introduced in the 1920s greatly changed farming. Precipitation and favorable weather were vital for successful crops and there were some good years, but the “Dirty Thirties” (1930s) were a time of extreme drought, dust storms, and financial hardship. Soil conservation was prioritized after prairie topsoil was carried all the way to Washington D.C. in a “black blizzard” in 1935. As industrial and mechanical advances were made, machinery was increasingly used to handle field work and farm chores, and over time, developed into today’s modern equipment, represented by the combine near the end of the timeline. Machinery greatly reduced the number of people working in agriculture; the size of farming operations grew; and the total number of farms declined. Precision farming using advanced technology, including GPS (global positioning systems), is a modern method of managing agricultural work and genetic engineering, introduced in the late 1900s, has been increasingly utilized in the development of crops and seed.

Depot and the Railroad Car: The railroad played an influential role in the area’s settlement and development. Goods, livestock, freight, passengers, mail, and news of the outside world traveled with the trains. The train depot and its agent provided a vital connection to the eastern states, and beyond – to places the settlers had previously called home. The model train table in the exhibit was designed to resemble the early Aberdeen landscape. A woman dressed in a traveling dress purchases a ticket from the station agent and railroad artifacts are displayed in the depot office. Metal cream cans represent the days when agricultural products such as milk and cream were transported by rail in vast quantities.

The adjacent gallery, designed to resemble an 1890s Pullman car, a luxurious train passenger car, offers historical interpretation on many remnants of rail history from the area. Visitors will learn about the development of trains and rail travel, see photos of historic depot buildings in the county, read about challenges due to weather, explore various jobs and skills required for work on the trains–including tools and equipment used by railroad employees, and discover why Aberdeen is nicknamed, “The Hub City.” At one time the town had four different railroad companies in operation, providing transportation in all directions. It is notable that all four historic train depot buildings in Aberdeen remain standing as witnesses of the past, though they have been repurposed and renovated for new uses.