Immigrant House Replica

 

 

Welcome to the MH&AM museum.  This is the front door entrance where visitors start the museum experience.  The Museum Store is located here as well.

 

 

The Immigrant House is a replica of those built by the Santa Fe Railroad to provide temporary shelter and housing for the Mennonite immigrants upon their arrival in 1874.  Two such buildings were located a mile NE of present-day Goessel. The original buildings were 18x200 feet long.  (At the west end of this replica building is a permanent exhibit depicting the interior of the original immigrant houses). About 33 families lived communally in each of the two buildings.  The exhibit, measuring 18x40 feet, is the approximate amount of floor space allotted to four families. Trunks were used to divide the space, while clothing and blankets were hung from the ceiling joists, perhaps to provide a small measure of privacy. 

 

Most families were able to buy land and erect a house or barn by the next November.  (The Krause House is an example of one of these early homes).  Some families lived in the immigrant houses for as long as five years. The houses were also used as a place of worship until the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church was built in 1886.

 

 

Other exhibits in the Immigrant House include 30 show cases which contain personal items of Mennonite pioneer families. These exhibits were designed by descendants of some of the immigrants.  The Mennonites maintained many of the customs from  The Netherlands and Prussia, even during the 50 years in Russia.  Many continued the tradition of wearing hand carved wooden shoes.  The Peter Voth and Jacob Unruh cases display pairs of these wooden shoes.  Russian Mennonite wall clocks were valued possessions, and the museum has three on display.