Before the diesel locomotive took on passengers or the older steam-powered train came out, the group wanted to test the tracks for safety. The group used the diesel locomotive, which […]

As Prairie Village activities ramp up for the season, several volunteers with the Friends of the Railway gave a presentation to library patrons Thursday, May 11. While dressed in historical […]

The Friends of the Railway group a work day on Saturday to get a Prairie Village caboose up to snuff before school tours begin in May. The group, which holds […]

The new Prairie Village Hall of Fame was inaugurated in 2022. This is a high honor reserved for only the caliber of individuals who have most selflessly served, supported, and […]

By MARY GALES ASKREN Staff Reporter May 10, 2022 Updated May 10, 2022 Volunteers do restoration work, Photo by Mary Gales Askren Passengers will get a more authentic experience this […]

By MARY GALES ASKREN, Staff Reporter May 15, 2020 PRESERVING HISTORIC structures inevitably involves making roof repairs. This week, a Sioux Falls-based company is doing roof work on the five […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Countless thank you’s are in order as we now wind down our regular season, and one can’t possibly cover them all. Pointing out that thanking one person […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. It was a jammin’ Jamboree! We entertained guests who have been to virtually every Jamboree along our historic timeline, and others who were taking in their very […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Here we go…. we’re about ready to roll with the 57th rendition of our annual Steam Threshing Jamboree. Anticipation builds all year for this, our founding event. […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. It would come as no surprise to most that I was never the hippie type. You know, as in the counterculture hippies of the 1960’s and early […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. This past Saturday, amidst a steady stream of visitors, we had the privilege of hosting three generations of a family from Lennox. Linda, Lindsay, Allison, and Ashley […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. When you’ve planned and promoted something special for a long time, sometimes the anticipated peak moment of it all is even better than you imagined. Throughout our […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. We’re a resilient bunch here in South Dakota. And for a lot of folks, 2019 has required every ounce of resiliency they can muster. Like virtually everyone, […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Here’s yet another historic anniversary, causing us to again reflect on how we got to today. Precisely 50 years ago this Tuesday, much of the world watched […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Unlike the way things were not many years ago at the village, we can only operate today with a dedicated, paid team who are on the grounds […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. We might be cruising along at the halfway mark of the summer season on our calendar, but once again this week we instead celebrate much in the […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. We’re gearing up for round two of our three-part summer concert series, and I’m personally thrilled we could land this one. I aim to creatively invest in […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. I absolutely love our mission of preserving the past, most of all when visitors’ eyes widen with excitement over one of our offerings they’ve never-before encountered, or […]

Tickets available in advance By MARY GALES ASKREN Staff Reporter   Beatlemania swept the world in the 1960s, changing one ranch kid’s attitude toward music forever.   Monte Madison, the founding member […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. We’re at that steady point in the season when we’ve got lots going on here, including events every weekend. This coming one is no exception, and frankly, […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. As I noted in an earlier column this spring, our country is recognizing several anniversaries of major events during the summer of 2019. These pivotal waypoints in […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. If there’s one common thought shared by every single person in this region recently, it’s definitely “surely this weather will straighten out next week”. I’ve certainly thought […]

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Faron Wahl, Manager. You might think an organization whose stated purpose is to preserve the past wouldn’t do much in the way of active preparations day to day. After all, […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. One of the most enjoyable experiences for me as manager is to visit with and hear feedback from our concertgoers at the close of each of those […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. This summer our nation will recognize a few major anniversaries of high-impact events…. groundbreaking ones which affected everything that followed. I intend to point them out in […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. With this unusually challenging spring weather pattern now hopefully behind us, we find ourselves now doubly ready to unveil the sunny outlook on our 2019 season at […]

  Courtesy Madison Daily Leader

Faron Wahl, Manager. What a great time we’ve had. This season began with the challenges of the snowiest April on record, the throes of winter holding us back from a […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Two happenings during the past week were heartwarming as well as historically impressive. One was so big you couldn’t be anywhere near Madison and miss it; the […]

  Courtesy Madison Daily Leader

Faron Wahl, Manager. It seems stuff just doesn’t last like it used to. Whether it’s a tote bag, a tacklebox, or a toaster, you won’t likely get the years of […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. I always seek to utilize this column principally for things ahead, anticipating and expounding on exciting events and activities we’re bringing your way. Reporting on what’s already […]

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Faron Wahl, Manager. We’re about to take you on a fabulous historical journey. We plan to tunnel back approximately 115 – 120 years, then snugly tie what we discover to […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Now it’s real. Exactly one year, nine months, and 22 days after our beloved Herschell-Spillman carousel headed to Ohio for the restoration of a lifetime, it returned […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. When planning our Opera House concerts and entertainment for each season, we like to think big, stretching ourselves outside the boundaries many folks might think limit us. […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. The accelerator is nearly to the floor. I mentioned in last week’s column that the typical mid-July lull in our schedule normally allows us to catch our […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. We’re entering the mid-summer stretch here at the village. With no negative connotations intended, one might consider it the eye of the hurricane; a pause where the […]

By MARY GALES ASKDREN, Staff Reporter | Posted: Monday, July 9, 2018 3:28 pm People also gathered on Sunday to honor that history at the worship service in the Chapel […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. One of the keys to keeping our recreated historic village unique and balanced is that it is surrounded by a working, full-size railroad. And it’s so fitting. […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Remember last week when I wrote about waiting, especially that part about the tougher the wait, the sweeter the reward? Well, things just got a bit sweeter! […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Waiting can be tough. It seems we usually must wait for those things in life worth waiting for. Typically, though, the more rugged the wait, the sweeter […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Now and then you see or hear something which, without warning, propels you back to an earlier time. Often, it’s music, which sets up camp in your […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. It’s one of the fastest growing sports in the United States today. And it involves just one seemingly straightforward concept: climb onto the back of a bull […]

  Courtesy Madison Daily Leader

Faron Wahl, Manager. With spring comes moisture (usually). With moisture comes grass growth. And with grass growth comes mowing. While many of us felt as though we lost some of […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. We typically kick off some light camping at the village during late April, with the overall momentum ramping up through May. And then comes Memorial Day. Once […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Last week I wrote about a handful of happenings from 1918, and how such a re-visit of history is a worthy task. Staying in the vein of […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. A great deal of my column content tends to focus on our current and upcoming village events. But rooted in historical preservation as we are, it would […]

Faron Wahl, Manager. Extreme variance in weather is a phenomenon most of us native South Dakotans have come to expect, even embrace. But most would agree…. April 2018 has been […]

  Courtesy Madison Daily Leader

  Courtesy Madison Daily Leader

Volunteers maintain train and track By MARY GALES ASKREN Staff Reporter    The season has ended, but activity continues at Prairie Village as volunteers tackle the to-do list of maintenance tasks […]

Plans begin for next year By MARY GALES ASKREN Staff Reporter    Seasons mark time in South Dakota, indicating the work to be done and leisure activity to be enjoyed. Right […]

By Cindy Bilka    What do railroad volunteers at Prairie Village do for fun when they get a break from cleaning flues, conducting tours and working on tracks and equipment? They […]

By Cindy Bilka    Sometimes the only way to get a job done is to get down and dirty. This is something the train crew at Prairie Village knows very well. […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Several weeks ago, I promised an update on the restoration of our carousel. As the news and plans have been shifting a bit lately, I’ve held off […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Here we are…. only a week away from the 24th annual Madison car show at Prairie Village. If you’d like to showcase your vehicle, you can enter […]

Faron Wahl, Manager As part of our staff’s fine work re-doing many of our buildings this summer, some of us were walking recently through our hotels, talking about what should […]

Faron Wahl, Manager A healthy portion of the traffic passing through our gates originates in our immediate region. We treasure and rely on folks from this area who have made […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Nothing is quite as disappointing as a stale cookie. If you enjoy cookies like I do, you anticipate and savor that first bite well before tasting it, […]

Railroad Days held at Prairie Village By CINDY BILKA Contributing Reporter   The combination of warm, sunny days and the Fourth of July holiday guaranteed a busy weekend at Prairie Village […]

Faron Wahl, Manager The more I pause to contemplate the generations of stories surrounding us here, the longer it makes me pause. I often realize we’re not even scratching the […]

‘There are two kinds of music, ‘Johnny’ and ‘Cash’’ By DAVE ASKINS Staff Reporter   A near capacity crowd in the 280-seat Lawrence Welk Opera House at Prairie Village rose to […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Nothing ties an early 20th century village more directly to its own roots than the railroad. The beginning of nearly every settlement, as well as its hope […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Our Prairie Village gift shop sees a great deal of activity, particularly during school tours and on busy camping weekends. Bev, our shop manager, works thoughtfully to […]

Faron Wahl, Manager I’m a purist at heart. In past years as a scale railroading hobbyist, it disturbed me greatly to allow any details of questionable authenticity or mixed-era into […]

Faron Wahl, Manager It takes dozens of behind-the-scenes details, organized methodically, to keep a place like Prairie Village humming. Nestled within those details are a few critical items such as […]

Faron Wahl, Manager For many years beginning in 1985, David Letterman’s show boasted the popular nightly “Top 10 List”. It became such a boon of late night TV that when […]

Faron Wahl, Manager We’re sure not getting any younger. Whether you’re a college student taking photos of our village buildings, a middle-aged dad spending the afternoon here with his family, […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Most of us find comfort in what’s familiar. Even the most restless and adventure-seeking folks tend to hold some inner longing for a certain amount of life […]

Faron Wahl, Manager For those who like to shop, there have never been more ways to get it done. You can visit your locally-owned business (excellent choice), major chain stores, […]

Faron Wahl, Manager You can certainly tell it’s spring at Prairie Village. The grass along historic main street is emerald green, camping families are staking their summer claims, and sunlight […]

By CHUCK CLEMENT Staff Reporter       Prairie Village will work with the classics — Elvis, Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash — throughout this summer’s entertainment schedule when it […]

  Courtesy Madison Daily Leader

Company will assess ride for restoration By JANE UTECHT Staff Reporter       Years ago, carousels were often made to be taken apart and moved from town to town, […]

It will not be ready for Sat. Pumpkin Train By JANE UTECHT Staff Reporter       Number 11 is back where it belongs — at the Prairie Village Herman […]

Faron Wahl, Manager       What a magnificent season we have experienced at Prairie Village during 2016!       As it goes with the passage of time, we’ve […]

Faron Wahl, Manager       After months of preparation we suddenly find ourselves in post-Jamboree mode. What a great event to log in the books for 2016!     […]

      When a person anticipates all year the return of a favorite annual event, it seems like an eternity before the calendar finally rolls around to it. For […]

Faron Wahl, Manager The great Massey folks are going to be front and center with us this year, as we’re hosting the Massey Expo of North America during our Steam […]

Faron Wahl, Manager We’re about to witness a transformation. It’s an annual happening, but certainly one of spectacular proportions. It’s our transition into the Steam Threshing Jamboree at Prairie Village. […]

Faron Wahl, Manager A family from Omaha was touring the Village this past week, taking in each building with thought and conversation. While I like to ensure folks can meander […]

Faron Wahl, Manager Of the various traditions at Prairie Village, one of the least known to many is our school tour program. It’s been happening for so many years now […]