Nappanee Travel Guide

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Great Place to learn about the Amish way of life and to visit a Amish Farm (museum). Amish Acres has restored the Stahly-Nissley-Kuhns farmstead. It is listed in The National Register of Historic Places. Widow Barbara Stahly and her five sons migrated from Germany to the southwest corner of Elkhart County, in 1839.

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After our visit to Amish Acres we decided to walk around town a bit, since we wanted to get a few more pictures of the area. Sue also got some shopping in as we stopped in one of the antique stores where Sue found a McDonalds' plate the depicted scenes of McDonald's from the 60's and 70's when we would frequent it as high school and college students.

The other pictures and a brief description as follows:

Picture #1 - The Post Office had a very original totem type sign that was carved from a tree that had been standing there, but probably had sustained some damage at one time.

Picture #2 - The Movie Theatre with showings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As I was taking this picture I met the owner's wife who mentioned the cooled air sign was an original from the 1930's.

Picture #3 - An old Bank Building (not sure what is in there now), but liked the shoe sign on the side of the building and the alarm box on the top left side.

Picture #4 - One of the houses on a side street. Sue took the picture while I bought 2 glasses of lemonade for 25 cents each across the street from 2 girls who showed us their new puppy.

Picture #5 - The Amish are know for quilt making and these representations were on the side of a building as we entered the downtown area.

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Over a 4 day period every year at the end of July/beginning of August, the Amish community of Nappanee, Indiana has an Arts and Crafts festival with the usual offerings of fair food and entertainment.

The fair is held on the grounds of Amish Acres which is home to a recreated Amish Village of the 1800's. The Village is complete with an old one room school house, cow barn, meat and cheese shop, ice cream and fudge shop, a community players theatre in a round barn, full service Amish restaurant among others.

We spent several hours at the fair having a lunch of a pulled pork sandwich (Rich) and 1/2 slap of ribs (Sue) along with purchasing the standard fair food of Kettle Corn (PICTURE 3) and Roasted and Flavored German nuts (we got the variety pack).

Entertainment we saw included, The Whip Guy, who has been on the Tonite Show and is still in the running (as of August, 2009) in the America's Got Talent program, period singers and musicians (see VT video), and a puppeteers show. (PICTURE 2)

As this is an Amish Community one needs to be mindful of the numerous families traveling in Horse and Buggies on the roads going abou their daily business. Although this community isn't as strict as other Amish Communities I've been in (saw a group of 4 Amish ladies pull up behind me in a mini-van while I was parked and head toward the corner speciality coffee shop) there are still a fair number that abide by the older forms of transportation including bikes carrying their groceries.

The Amish don't believe in having their picture taken, so respect their wishes and try not to photograph them.

If you want you can take a picture of the Amish light post like I did with this picture.