The Cultural Heritage Center - The Place
The Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown
University is an excellent example of a 19th-century Pennsylvania
German farmstead and a unique collection of model Pennsylvania
German architecture with European antecedence.
The farm buildings are a composite grouping of exceptional
rural American limestone structures representative of the
geographic lifestyle of the Great American Valley of Pennsylvania
and its Virginia Shenandoah Valley counterpart.
On the site are a stone farmhouse and a cold storage wash house
butcher house (both circa 1800), a Swiss bank barn (1871), a corn -
crib shed and inverted corn crib (circa 1890), a pigsty (1928), and
the Freyberger School, an authentically-restored one room school
(circa 1870), moved to the farm site for educational purposes.
The stone farmhouse and the Swiss bank barn are of museum
quality. The exterior of the stone farm house has been renovated,
and the interior has been fully restored. There are plans to
completely renovate the Swiss bank barn for use as a museum.
The schoolhouse at the Center is in continual use for
educational programs for children and for seminars and
presentations related to Pennsylvania German culture. A visitors
center houses a genealogical library.
During the spring and summer, the 60 acres of fields at the
Center are tilled and maintained by the Old Time PlowBoys Club,
Inc.
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Last Modified: March 6, 2006 This site updated and maintained by the Heritage
Center.