This historic village, founded by Erie J. Sauder, opened in June 1976 as a non-profit living history museum and educational complex. More than 30 historic and craft buildings depict how life would have been in rural Ohio during the 19th century. Four of these are former homes of immigrants and early settlers, built between 1834 and 1910, that were moved to the site, then restored.
Visitors progress from the earliest home, a simple dirt floor cabin, to a clapboard-sided log home.
Through stories and demonstrations, costumed interpretative guides bring history alive. Their craft work is used throughout the village. The 250-seat Barn Restaurant was once a dilapidated barn, built by the Amish in 1861. Although Ohio became a state in 1803, few permanent European settlers considered entering the damp, forested wilderness of northwestern Ohio, known as the Great Black Swamp, until the 1830s. In 1834, the first party of Mennonite immigrants arrived just east of Sauder Village to start a new life away from the religious persecution in their homeland.