Bridges are critical to travel and commerce. When pioneers settled this land in covered wagons, any waterway or barrier was an encumberance which had to be overcome. Think how far you could go before encountering a bridge and you willl realize how important to our way of life these essentials are. At first, before bridges, you had to find the shallowest crossing and float accross, or as an intermediary step was ferries, which, could float you and your goods across waterways. Compaired to walking or riding, when railroads came in it was like going from (Star Trek) impulse 1/2 to warp 9! :-D
This recreated village has original buildings from pioneer days, and is set up to illustrate life in early Kansas. There is a blacksmith shop for demos, schoolhouse, church, shops and home set up with accoutremenmts from olden days. A crank type telephone exchange is located in main building & most out buildings have crank telephones, this gives perspective on technological improvements when you realize the ear piece of these sets are larger than today;s cell phones (there was no internet, no visual devices but drawings, paintings & early photography, sound only, no video games or ringtones on these early telephones), calling someone rather than traveling to speak to them was a great leap forward from previous methods of light and smoke signals or yelling down the holler and banging on drums for communication.
The wind wagon statue was inspired by a real historical event. Several locals rigged up a wagon with sail and did a cross country West through Kansas. The story part about a tornado and high speed travel are embelishments on reality, but records show the real windwagon managed to average 10 mph some days, a respectable speed with no bridges, no roads & transversing cross country (everything was cross country in that time).
The windmill is set up to show how critical water was to survival of homesteads and was the one element that could make or break a settlement: no water, no life. Windmill is set up to demonstrate pumping water, recirculating underground resivour back into water trough. Other windmills could grind grain, run saws or other farmstead equipment.
The bandstand tells a story of tornado coming through town: Old bandstand was located on courthouse grounds and along with courhouse, had to be rebuilt (that is reason Jefferson County has a more modern courthouse than most: historical society has pictures of old courthouse before and after storm).
Just up the road from historical buildings and displays is a field used to demonstrate methods of horse and oxen farming. During events you get to ride in horse drawn wagon and see demos of early farming methods and equipment.