Please be very careful caching. There are horse drawn carriage that are black, so in the dark they are very hard to see. If they know you are there, they do try to get to the right side of the road so it is easier for you to pass. Also, if they do not use the carriages, they will use a horse or walk. Do not be surprised while you are caching that they stop to see if you need any help. They will not pass you without waving, HI!
This town has a high population of Amish. This will wind you through their schools, businesses and especially their homes.
Bloomfield
Bloomfield is a much younger Iowa Amish settlement located to the southwest of Kalona in Davis County. Founded in 1971, this community is nearly the same size as Kalona, at 8 churches. Bloomfield Amish churches maintain a similar though somewhat more traditional Ordnung.
Amish settlement extends west from Bloomfield up to and beyond the hamlet of West Grove, and up to Drakesville and beyond to the north. At least eight Amish schools and one cemetery serve the Amish of this community.
Amish at Bloomfield are quite entrepreneurial, and operate a wide array of businesses. As of 2003, there were nearly 70 businesses in operation, averaging about one per every other Amish household
Numerous furniture and wood businesses, a bakery, a rug weaver, and a greenhouse are among the enterprises run by Amish (read more on Iowa Amish furniture businesses). Horseshoers, buggy shops, and a refrigerator business serve the needs of the Amish community and in some cases non-Amish as well.
Bloomfield is the home of an Amishman paralyzed as a young man, who was later the subject of a book written by his father. Read more on the Bloomfield Amish settlement.
Working Amish Community – Near Bloomfield, Iowa Near Drakesville This is a working Amish comminity with over 40 businesses near Drakesville and Bloomfield, Iowa. (If you stop at the Davis County Welcome Center you can obtain maps to nearby Amish businesses.) This Amish settlement in southeast Iowa near Bloomfield, has been in existence since the mid-1960s. The Amish bring a lifestyle that focuses on the simple things in life.
The array of businesses the Amish provide to the community include several wood working and furniture shops, country stores, a quilt shop, greenhouses, harness shops, horse collar manufacturing, a buggy shop and a selection of other businesses.
At the Yoder Kountry Korner you will find an expansive ruogh-hewn pine porch to welcome you. It also contains Amish made indoor and outdoor furniture, wagons, horse tack and quilts. The items in this store, like those in the other businesses in the area, are made by the family members.
On your way to Drakesville, you will pass a one-room Amish schoolhouse, wonderful white-washed Amish homes (remember, there is no electricity to any of these homes or businesses), filled with Amish families which average eight children per family. Many of the farms include a smaller home for the grandparents to live in called a "grossdawdy" house in German.
If the buggy is in the yard and the horses are in the paddock and there is not an electrical line running to the home, you can be pretty sure you have come upon an Amish home.
At the Graber’s Country Store and Discount Foods you will find a section of the store that is filled with salvaged goods from groceries to building supplies.
It’s good to know something about Amish customs when you visit an Amish community. Ask permission before photographing Amish people, their homes, farms and businesses. Remember that the Amish keep Sundays for worship, so plan your trip for other days of the week, when Amish shops are open.
Location: South and Wet of Bloomfield, around Drakesville.
The Amish community lying north and west of Bloomfield, Iowa is one of the three largest in the state. Like the nearby settlement at Kalona, and the more conservative group found in Buchanan County in the northeast part of the state, Bloomfield is home to roughly 8 church districts, comprising about 175 households.
Yet the Bloomfield settlement is by far the youngest of the three, having been founded in 1971, while the Kalona group came into being a full 125 years earlier, in 1846. Amish settlements develop and grow at different rates depending on numerous factors.
There are least three buggy shops, a strawberry farm/greenhouse, a bakery, a kiln, numerous furniture and wood processing businesses, a chimney seller, two horseshoers, a rug weaver, and a refrigerator business.