My husband grew up on a dairy farm in Maine. He loved this museum!!! He must of said to me a thousand times, "We had this!" He looked at every display and completely enjoyed every minute of his time there. I, being the city kid, found the farming statistics interesting. I was totally shocked by the increase in corn yields over the years. The advances in farming technologies is what I found the most fascinating as well as the displays made by artisans. I would highly recommend a stop here for anyone, farmer or not! It's very interesting!
It was a nice, large facility with many rooms; organized chronologically. It was nice to see the history of the development of toy tractors. Lots of dioramas and models. There were interactive rooms for children to play, and books for them to read. There was also a gift shop. We spent over two hours there.
We went there with our grandson. My wife grew up on a farm in Iowa and had many of the same farm toys that were displayed. I liked the dioramas for farm life in the 20's and 30's. The upstairs displays were better organized. There were some awesome hand-built farm "toys", and I use the quotes because I wouldn't consider them toys. They were more like miniature re-creations of farm equipment. All in all, we enjoyed our time there, as did our grandson.
If you like farm machinery and toys this place is amazing. Wonderful place to spend about an hour touring. Been back several times... keep finding more things to look at. Wonderful
We are a farm family so this museum was of great interest to all of us. There were several toys in the museum that I had as a kid, some my dad and brother had too. There were also a few instances of tractors we have, or have had in real life. This place would be of specific interested to Farmall/International, Allis-Chalmers, Oliver, and John Deere people. There were also many Fords, New Holland, Minneapolis-Moline, White, Steiger, Big Bud, Case, Cockshutt, and so forth. I would not say you have to be interested in farming to stop here though. This is a recommended stop for any person looking to learn something new, and or see an impressive amount of toy tractors and implements. There are many impressive, hand-made articles that it was a real treat for me to see. Most specifically, the hand-made toy potato planter. It was made with such detail there is even a water jug in the cab! I enjoyed this museum and would recommend stopping.
More farm toys than I have ever seen in one place. Worth the visit.Wide variety of brands, models and types made the visit very interesting. Just off the highway, so it was easy to get too.Don't miss the Field Of Dreams movie site during the summer months that is just a few miles outside of town.
Thought it was a little weird that we had to go into the fitness club for a bathroom, but other than that we had a great time.
If you like farm toys, or would like to know more about farming, the National Farm Toy Museum will be a lot of fun for you. The thousands of toys available to see at the museum were not only recognizable to me as some that I had played with growing up as a kid on an Iowa farm, but they also document the history and evolution of farm equipment history. There was a lot of information and displays about farming and the equipment used in farming from the beginning of agriculture. I recommend stopping by, and allow some time, the more you are into farming, the more time you will want to take.
My family recently stopped here with a 2 year old. We aren't farmers, but it was interesting. I thought the 1st floor was just okay. A lot of farm toys, not as much organization as I would prefer. I was happy with the 2nd floor however. They had all the different models, and information in the glass cases about each brand. They also had a small kids room on the 2nd floor that my son enjoyed. Overall we were happy we stopped.
stopped in but wasnt going to pay admission to see farm toys..had it been free and asked for donations i woulda went all the way through