FORT DODGE, Iowa – There are some places you can go where you can find farm fun for the whole family, and the Fort Dodge Museum and Frontier Village is one of them. This non-profit museum offers two experiences – a visit to a replica of the 19th Century fort and stockade and a pioneer village with a combination of replicas and original buildings. The site offers stories of pioneer life in Fort Dodge, from the military aspect to the Native American presence. Antique tractor collectors and farm toy enthusiasts, if they look, will find a treasure trove of items to enjoy.

The museum is open from April to November, and part of the fun is the wandering in and out aspect. The buildings include a family cabin, church, one room chophouse, cabinet shop, land office, general store, drug store, jail, print shop, blacksmith shop, livery stable, pottery building and tinsmith shop.

The stories of the early settlement and of some of the settlers are fascinating. One amazing story includes the amazing replica of the Cardiff Giant; a giant form carved from gypsum which was a local mineral that set the area on the map. The carved giant housed in the museum was once purported to be a giant from the Bible and was shown all around the U.S. in traveling circuses in the 1800s.

The story goes that George Hull, a cigar maker, was visiting Iowa and got into a theological debate about Giants from the Book of Genesis. An atheist, to prove a point, he took a 5-ton block of gypsum and had it fashioned into a man lying on his back. He had the “giant” that was 10-feet tall and weighed around 3,000 pounds aged. Burying the giant at his relative’s farm, eventually it was “discovered” and the hoax was on.

Fort Dodge is called “Gypsum Capital of the World.” It was first discovered in 1849, a year before Fort Dodge Fort was established. Coal came first, but soon the gypsum was discovered, and when George Ringland perfected how to make it into plaster, the industry took off. Kerrie Kupier, director of Fort Dodge Tourism, explained a bit of the gypsum connection to the town. “There are currently three different companies mining gypsum in the Ford Dodge region.”

Former Gypsum mining areas have been reclaimed, and one popular site is the Gypsum City Campground. The gypsum, along with clay deposits in the area, gave rise to a large pottery industry. The first to start the pottery business was Potter Martin White, who partnered with Richard Meigs to establish Fort Dodge Pottery around 1870. Several other companies followed, and there is a wonderful exhibit in the village.

The Fort Museums stockaded fort is not a replica of the original Fort, Kerrie Kuiper shared, but a replica of Fort Williams. It was a fort that would have been built on the Minnesota border. The Fort Dodge fort was built, Kuiper added, like a downtown grid with no stockades.

Fort Dodge is near the Des Moines River, and this area was scouted as early as 1835 by Nathaniel Boone. The original fort that the U.S. Army erected was built Aug. 2, 1850, and originally was called Fort Clark, and later was renamed Fort Dodge in honor of Henry Dodge, a senator and former governor of the Wisconsin Territory that at one time included Iowa. The fort was only operational until 1853 and was abandoned.

During the time the fort was occupied, it was built by then 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Infantry, Lewis Addison Armistead. He oversaw the construction using local timber and stone. While there, he suffered personal tragedy losing his wife, who was in Mobile, Ala. Later Armistead would give up his U.S. Army position to become a brigadier general in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and would die during Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Fort Dodge docent, Sean O’Conner, added to the history, sharing that William Williams purchased the land and buildings and established what would eventually become Fort Dodge. While there were no Native American uprisings during the time the fort was there, O’Conner shared that a man named Henry Lott sold them bad whiskey and stole horses from the Sioux and sparked an uprising.

The Fort is built on former Native American ground, and the museum includes lots of artifacts.

 “The quarter master is the only still surviving fort building,” O’Conner said. “It is the oldest structure in the city.”

A walk through the village is like stepping back in time. The Sutler Store is a cabin that was built back in 1857. Used as a place where goods were sold like food, dry goods and tools and medicine to both soldiers and civilians, it has been restored to look much like the one that William Williams would have used at Fort Dodge from 1850-1853. One building housed buggies and shared a story about a couple that had a car, but the wife was afraid to drive it, so he bought her a buggy instead.

The livery was described as “a hotel of horses.” In the livery, horse lovers will be enamored with Ralph M. Fogelman’s beautiful horses and wagon displays. Fogelman was a former veteran breeder, exhibiter and judge of draft horses. No pioneer village is complete without a blacksmith shop. This one has a sign reminding the patrons, “Remember the Sabbath day and get your horses shod on Saturday.”

Agricultural equipment is scattered throughout the fort and village like a wooden goat treadmill, cream separator, wooden wheels, corn sheller, wagons and more. Antique farm toys are also on display along with some interesting salesman samples. Some items are models like the horse drawn walking plow, a model of Daniel Webster’s 1854 plow and a model of a McCormick reaper.

In the general store is an Agitator, an exactly one-half replica of a working model of an early wooden threshing machine that would have been used in the 19th century. While there are models, there are also Arcade and other farm toys as well. 

For more information about the museum, check out their website at www.fortmuseumfv.com.