Ernest Bontrager has a clip of still images taken in the Amish settlement at Monte Vista, Colorado (Rio Grande and Conejos counties). It’s not a new video (2010), but is a nice look at the type of sights you might see in a western Amish settlement. I haven’t visited Amish further west than Iowa, so I like these looks at communities in the Mountain Time Zone….
The Arthur Amish community occupies a special place with me. This was where I first really got to know something about Amish people. As an outsider who knew nothing about them, I never intended to “study the Amish”. I could scarcely have had any idea where things might lead when I knocked on that first Amish farmhouse door ten years ago. As I tell in the foreword of…
We started the week talking Amish population–so why don’t we close doing more of the same! First, there were a number of interesting points from the recent Young Center Amish population data that I wanted to share, but couldn’t really fit on the Amish population infographic: There are 480 Amish settlements, but most are small. Fifty-two percent of all settlements are just one district in size. There…
With close neighbors Ohio and Pennsylvania home to over 130,000 Amish, you’d think a few people with an itch to move would have looked south or east and considered the Mountain State. There are some Amish spots on the WV map, but not many–three to be exact. West Virginia is just not as attractive to Amish for whatever reason, especially compared to places like New York or…
If you were scanning a map of Kansas for places where Amish might be found, Yoder in Reno County would seem a logical guess, given how common that last name is among Amish today. And it’d be a good guess–the town itself was named after the son of an Amish bishop, Eli M. Yoder, who came to homestead here in 1870 (see GAMEO – Yoder). In 1886, the…
Maybe more than any other Amish place name, I’ve never had a clue how to pronounce “Chouteau” (Chah-toe? Shoh-two? Choo-tee-ow? 🙂 ). Lucky for me, this is a blog, not a podcast. Why am I pondering pronunciation quirks again? Well, our busy contributor Tom Geist checks in today with a visit to the Chouteau, Oklahoma Amish settlement. Tom, I should say, gets around pretty well. Besides recent…
Somewhat confusingly, the words “Nebraska Amish” often refer to the “white-topper” group of Pennsylvania and Ohio which bears that name–legacy of an associated bishop and early church members from the Cornhusker State. Less is heard about the small population of Amish who actually live in Nebraska. Amish America contributor Tom Geist today shares his visits to the handful of communities in the state. Verdigre #1 The…
Last month, contributor Don Burke gave us a look at the Kalona, Iowa Amish settlement. Don returns today with a selection of photos from the Jamesport, Missouri Amish community. At eight church districts, Jamesport (Daviess County) is the third-largest of Missouri’s three dozen+ Amish settlements, smaller than only Seymour (Webster County) and Clark (Audrain/Monroe/Randolph County). Founded in 1953, only the Bowling Green community is older among the Show-Me State’s…
Contributor Tom Geist recently shared his visit to South Dakota’s only Amish community. It was a nice post but a little short on images. Today, the photos. Hutchinson County contains a grand total of 7,187 people (as of 2012), spread over 814 square miles, or just under 9 people per square mile. By comparison, similarly-sized Lancaster County, PA has about 535 people per square mile….
South Dakota has had a spot on the Amish map since 2010, when a handful of families from Wisconsin settled near Tripp in Hutchinson County. One of our contributors, Tom Geist, recently shared a little on his visit to the Tripp Amish community. Tom writes: I was lucky enough to travel to Tripp, South Dakota on March 12th 2014. They now have 9 families there,…