Dakota City Heritage Village offers visitors the chance to experience rural life in 1900-era Dakota County. A recreated historic village and museum, Dakota City is located on the Dakota County Fairgrounds on the south edge of Farmington. Dakota City's five-acre site includes 22 buildings that help to tell the story of life in a 1900 rural town. Dakota City offers special events throughout the year where visitors will experience living history firsthand with costumed interpreters and demonstrations. The Village and Museum are also open for educational programs, senior groups, celebrations and tours by reservation.    

As urban sprawl obliterates America's agricultural past, Dakota City connects families to the agricultural and immigrant past of Dakota County communities where they now live. Dakota City focuses on how rural communities functioned 100 years ago and how residents met their need for food, shelter, clothing and social interaction.

In Ahlberg Heritage Center, visitors can view permanent and temporary displays on Dakota County and Minnesota social and rural history, with an emphasis on agriculture. With more than 7,000 artifacts in the collection, Dakota City staff develops educational and engaging exhibits around its vast agricultural and material objects.


THE VILLAGE
 
This turn-of-the-century rural village is based on villages in Dakota County that served the surrounding farms.

Buildings in the Village include the:

• Depot - the transportation hub, where farm products went from the farms to the markets and people traveled in and out of town.
• Fire Barn - houses the simple equipment used to fight fires in small towns of that era.
• Jail - with its one cell, was often where hoboes riding the rails would spend the night.
• District 96 Schoolhouse - recreates the one-room-school where rural citizens received their education.
• Vermillion Presbyterian Church - depicts the spiritual and social center of the village.
• Dakota Drug - with both the pharmacy exhibit and the soda fountain, where root beer and ice cream are available.
• Vermillion Bank - where the village's financial resources were kept.
• General Store - the place where eggs could be traded for supplies and where news was exchanged.
• Bandstand - the social gathering place when the band plays in the center of the village.
• Post Office - where letters and mail-order catalogs were a link to the outside world.
• Blacksmith Shop - depicting the fix-it shop of 1900, where horses were shoed, tools and vehicles were fixed, and hangers and hinges were made of iron.
• Gibson Barbershop - the place to get shaves, haircuts, baths, and the news that wasn't in the paper.
• Dakota City Free Press - produces a newspaper using a linotype and 1900-era presses.
• Law Office - where legal transactions and disputes of all types were handled by the country lawyer.
• Village Hall - the seat of local government, where townspeople voted.
• Library- where education beyond the country school often took place.  It contains books, newspapers, and magazines from the 19th and early 20th century.
• Millinery - a 1900-era shop where women purchased hats, accessories, and placed orders with dressmakers.
• Harris House - a typical 1900 two-story home.
• McMenomy House - a 1900 Irish-American home in rural Dakota County (to open 2010).