The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has completed an extensive study – the Statewide Amish Travel Study – examining road safety in the Buckeye State. The study is presumably the precursor to safety improvement projects for the state’s 70,000+ residents who travel by horse-and-buggy. The study found that over 700 accidents occurred on Ohio’s state routes from 2009-2018. Of those accidents, about 350 resulted in…
This video is titled “Amish Singing On Amtrak”. The quality is passable though not great. But I couldn’t pass up sharing it. This video combines two themes seen here in recent months – Amish singing and Amish on trains. The men singing do appear to be Amish. I count at least three of them. The only detail the uploader put in the video description is…
Following our look at the Buchanan County, Iowa Amish business map, reader Denise Joyal shares her own visit to the community, including photos and more info on some of the stores there. On the map are listed nearly 50 businesses. Denise informs us below that the map doesn’t quite have all the shops there. I liked Denise’s photos of the business cards, and two signs…
News just broke this afternoon: 34-year-old Lancaster County resident Justo Smoker was arrested last night and charged with kidnapping Linda Stoltzfoos. A vehicle resembling Smoker’s was seen by multiple witnesses in the area of Gap with an Amish female in the passenger seat on the afternoon Linda went missing. Linda remains missing, and “investigators have reason to believe Stoltzfoos was harmed following her abduction,” according…
This week’s Amish home comes from Wisconsin. It is a 3-bedroom and 1-bathroom home of about 1600 square feet, sitting on almost 3 acres of land. It last sold for just $45,000 in 2018. This is in Waushara County, in central WI. This place is pleasant-ish inside, but I will not pretend that this is the most beautiful Amish home I’ve ever seen. You can…
From the AP: SPARTA, Pa. (AP) — A hit-and-run crash involving an SUV and a horse-drawn Amish buggy left two adults and two young children in the buggy seriously injured. Pennsylvania state police say the accident in Sparta occurred shortly before 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The SUV struck the buggy from behind and then fled the scene. Authorities say the SUV was later located, but further…
Today a look inside a simple and plain Amish home in Springboro, Pennsylvania. This is in Crawford County in the northwest corner of the state. You’ll find Amish scattered across this county – there are six settlements, all or part of which lie within its borders. This looks like it is the settlement near Conneautville, just two churches in size. It’s a materially plain community…
Another Amish business map to share – this one from the sizeable settlement in Buchanan County, Iowa (Hazleton). The area promotes the local “Amish Boulevard” – a stretch of county road running through the heart of the community (it’s W13 on the map below). On this map you’ll find nearly 50 Amish businesses. You can see the area’s grid roads are really dotted with shops…
I put “Amish tourism” in quotes in the title because those two words usually mean non-Amish tourists visiting Amish areas. But this is the other, less-common meaning – Amish as tourists themselves. It turns out a good number of Amish people are rather fond of a Colorado hot springs resort town named Glenwood Springs, which happens to lie on an Amtrak train route. It’s not…
This video was shot in an Amish kitchen – on the farm where the movie Witness was filmed in the 1980s. In it, Martha Beiler takes us through making a large batch of chicken pot pie. We don’t see her face at any point, but we do see what she’s doing and hear her speak (photos by Paul Kuehnel/York Daily Record). The occasion was a…