Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum

The Nation’s Largest Museum of Pennsylvania German Rural Life

100 Acres, 40 Historic Buildings, 75,000 Artifacts, and a Living Village That Has Been Preserving Lancaster County Heritage Since 1925

On a hillside just north of Lancaster city, the Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum spreads across 100 acres of the former Landis family farm — a crossroads village, working farmsteads, restored historic buildings, costumed craftspeople, heritage livestock, and the largest collection of Pennsylvania German artifacts in the United States. It is simultaneously a serious museum, a working living history site, and one of the most complete surviving records of early American rural life accessible anywhere in the mid-Atlantic.

The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 12:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays and on major holidays, including New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents’ Day, Easter Sunday, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving. Always verify current hours at landisvalleymuseum.org before visiting.

Admission: Adults $12 | Seniors (65+) and discount: $10 | Youth (ages 3–11): $8 | Children under 2: Free | Active Duty Military and families: Free. Museums for All EBT cardholders receive discounted admission. Group rates are available with advance reservation. Lancaster County library cardholders can access the museum free through the Lancaster County Library Family Museum Pass Program.

The Landis Brothers and the Museum’s Origins

The story of Landis Valley Museum is inseparable from the story of two brothers, Henry Kinzer Landis (1865–1955) and George Diller Landis, who grew up on the Landis family farm in Lancaster County during the 1870s and 1880s and shared a passionate commitment to preserving the Pennsylvania German culture of their ancestors before it disappeared.

Henry became an engineer, then a writer and editor of technical journals in New York City, spending decades away from Lancaster while returning on weekends and vacations — and steadily accumulating a remarkable collection of Pennsylvania German domestic and agricultural artifacts. George pursued engineering as well. Both brothers developed as collectors, motivated by the conviction that the material culture of Lancaster County’s Pennsylvania German community was being lost as industrialization and assimilation reshaped rural life.

After retiring to the family farm in the early 1920s, the brothers combined their collections and, in 1925, officially opened many of their collected items to public viewing. The cultural attraction they built was formally incorporated as the Landis Valley Museum in 1941, with a professional curator hired, and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission eventually assuming administrative oversight.

Today, Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum is administered by the PHMC and celebrates its 100th anniversary of continuous operation — making it one of the oldest living history museums in the United States.

Trivia: Henry K. Landis was also, somewhat unexpectedly, a serious photographer whose work documented New York City street life and immigrant communities in the early 20th century — self-portraits, architectural photography, and “posed-thematic character studies” that form a significant secondary collection in the museum’s holdings. He was, in short, considerably more interesting than most museum founders.

The Village and Buildings

The Landis Valley complex encompasses over 40 historic structures on 100 acres, organized to recreate the character and function of an early Pennsylvania German crossroads community. The buildings range from original structures brought to the site from the surrounding Lancaster County landscape to carefully reconstructed examples representing specific building types:

The Landis Homestead

The original Landis family farmstead at the core of the museum, where Henry and George grew up and where the museum’s collections were first assembled. Tours of the main house provide the personal anchor for the broader interpretive story.

The Tavern

A restored 18th-century tavern demonstrating the social and commercial role of the crossroads inn in Pennsylvania German rural life — the gathering place for travelers, tradespeople, and community members.

The Blacksmith Shop

An operating blacksmith shop where costumed demonstrators work iron using traditional techniques, producing functional objects as their predecessors did for more than two centuries.

The Gunsmith Shop

The Pennsylvania long rifle — the “Kentucky rifle” of frontier legend — was primarily a Lancaster County invention, produced by German immigrant gunsmiths whose combination of old-world craft tradition and new-world necessity created one of the most influential weapons in American history. The gunsmith shop demonstrates the tradition.

The One-Room Schoolhouse

A preserved 19th-century country school that demonstrates the educational landscape of rural Pennsylvania before the consolidation of public education. Living history programs bring the colonial classroom experience to life for school groups.

The Print Shop and Country Store

Demonstrating the commercial infrastructure of a functioning rural community.

Working Farmsteads

Multiple working farmsteads with heritage-breed livestock and period-appropriate farming demonstrations, showcasing agricultural practices from the 18th and 19th centuries in active operation.

The Heirloom Seed Project

One of the most practically significant programs at Landis Valley is the Heirloom Seed Project — a conservation initiative that maintains, grows, and distributes over 65 varieties of historically documented seeds that would otherwise be extinct or unrecoverable. The project focuses on vegetables, herbs, and plants cultivated by Pennsylvania German communities in the 18th and 19th centuries, preserving the genetic diversity of pre-industrial agriculture in living plants rather than in frozen samples.

Seeds and plants from the project are available in the museum store — meaning a visit to Landis Valley can result in growing vegetables from seeds that were on George Washington’s dinner table, which is the kind of thing that sounds like marketing copy until you realize it’s simply accurate.

Living History and Annual Events

Landis Valley’s programming calendar is one of the most active of any living history museum in Pennsylvania:

• Herb and Garden Faire — spring celebration of the traditional gardens and medicinal plants of Pennsylvania German culture
• Civil War Days — immersive living history event recreating the experience of soldiers and civilians during the conflict
• Harvest Days — fall celebration of traditional agricultural practices and seasonal foodways
• Christmas at Landis Valley — winter programming exploring Pennsylvania German holiday traditions
• Workshops and Craft Demonstrations year-round — fraktur painting, blacksmithing, weaving, pottery, and more