The Kandiyohi County Museum

Just off Highway 23 in Willmar, Minnesota you can find this interesting little museum. Along with the sign above, there is an old Northern Pacific locomotive. You can't miss it.

If you pay the $3 admission fee, you can even board the locomotive and take a look inside the cab! Just obey the signs and don't go climbing around like it's a jungle gym. It also looks like all the various hatches and doors on the tender have been welded shut to keep curious people like me from investigating. The array of levers, knobs, and dials is very interesting though.

Also outside the main museum building can be found a schoolhouse and a cabin set up with assorted items and informational plaques. There is an agricultural building that was not open to the public at the time of my visit.

The Sperry house nearby offers a glimpse into the architecture of the past. This last building is only open by appointment though. I was unable to just wander in.

The interior exhibits are doubtless always changing, but they offer local history including the demographics of the immigrants to the area and preserved artifacts from a bygone era.

I strongly recommend taking some time to visit local museums to get a feel for the local history of any area you visit. While they may not be like polished big-city exhibits, they do exhibit not only items from the past, but also the kind of care only a local historical society can show for the events and people that formed their communities.