Conner Prairie

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1886 baseball demonstration at Liberty Corner.
1886 baseball demonstration at Liberty Corner.

Conner Prairie is a living history museum in Fishers, Indiana that preserves the historic Conner farm and recreates part of life in Indiana in the 19th century on the White River. It is said to be the second most realistic living history museum in the United States, second only to Colonial Williamsburg[citation needed].

Contents

Museum Center exterior.
Museum Center exterior.

The museum grounds are divided into several sections, where different eras in history are recreated to create a kind of living timeline. Staff in period costumes demonstrate the way early inhabitants in the area lived. They explain their livestyles in character while performing chores such as cooking, chopping wood, making pottery, and tending to animals. Patrons are often invited to join in the activities.

The museum's main building, called the Museum Center, contains the entrance lobby, ticket sales counter, restaurant, banquet hall, and gift shop. The gift shop sells pottery made by the museum's costumed staff as well as more conventional souvenirs.

Conner Prairie serves as the summer home of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. The Friday/Saturday "Symphony on the Prairie" concert series, once sponsored by the recently sold Marsh Supermarket chain, attracts some 90,000+ concertgoers each year, a substantial percentage of Conner Prairie's annual visitor count.

After a recent legal struggle with Earlham College, the museum is completely independent and has its own endowment. After the firing of its board members and President John Herbst by the board of Earlham, Ellen M. Rosenthal served as Interim Director. She is now the President of the museum.

Spinning wheel demonstration in the Conner loom house, producing yarn from wool.
Spinning wheel demonstration in the Conner loom house, producing yarn from wool.

Conner Prairie features several permanent attractions and numerous semi-regular events, including "Mystery on the Prairie" murder mystery evenings, the Headless Horseman ride in the autumn, candlelight tours, and country fair. It also hosts Civil War re-enactments, and Christmas holiday events and dinners.

Conner house.
Conner house.

The genuine Conner brick house and barn are preserved as a museum. Visitors can hear about how early Hoosiers cooked, spun and dyed thread and yarn, and cared for their animals and crops.

Liberty Corner recreates a rural community in 1886, with a schoolhouse, Quaker meeting house, authentic covered bridge, and farm (Victorian home and three-bay bank barn). Visitors might even catch a vintage base ball game.

1836 Pottery wheel demonstration in Prairietown.
1836 Pottery wheel demonstration in Prairietown.

Prairietown recreates a pioneer community in 1836, with a blacksmith shop, pottery shop, inn, doctor's office, schoolhouse, and several residences. Visitors arriving early in the day might help with morning chores.

Lenape Camp fur trader log cabin.
Lenape Camp fur trader log cabin.

Lenape Camp recreates bark and reed wigwams and a fur trade camp with a log cabin. Visitors can learn how the Lenape (Delaware Indians) lived in Indiana in 1816 and hunted and trapped animals to trade with white fur traders.

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