THE OPEN AIR MUSEUM

The first settler's house from North America was taken "home" to the museum in 1955. Another arrived in 1962. Both of these houses moved with the museum to Hamar in 1973. The open air museum was officially opened by His Majesty King Olav V in May, 1989. At the present time the museum has six buildings on the property.

When the open-air museum is finished, it will be one of the few museums of its kind in Europe. Visitors will be able to travel into the emigration in time and space. They will move from a Norwegian cotter's farm through farms and villages in the American Midwest, to a west-coast fisheries pier and a Norwegian-American church. The object of the open-air museum will be to illustrate to visitors the life led by Norwegian emigrants to the American Midwest during the 1880's. The museum has chosen this particular time and place because the 1880's saw the greatest number of emigrants leave Norway, and over 90% of them went to the American Midwest. Taken together the buildings will represent the first "generation" of houses and barns put up by Norwegian emigrants in this area.