Summer is when people travel. Many of those trips take in Amish areas. Actually, in a lot of states it’s getting harder to drive anywhere without passing near an Amish spot on the map. I also know a lot of you live in or near Amish settlements. So I thought I’d throw it out–are you visiting any Amish communities this summer? (or have you already?)…
The Young Center of Elizabethtown College has just released annual Amish population estimates. The big news: over the past year Amish settled two states with no existing communities. Wyoming I had heard about Amish heading to Wyoming late last summer. I’m told the new community has ties with Amish in southern Wisconsin. At around half a million people, Wyoming is America’s least-populated state, but one…
Good news for Amish drivers in southern Indiana. The Amish settlement in Daviess County will be getting buggy lanes on one major road. The Odon-Cannelburg road runs north-south through the middle of this community. The road, also known as County Road 900 E, is a major economic artery with Amish buggies, semi’s, cars, and all types of motorized transportation sharing the road, with sometimes disastrous results. The…
Tonya Clifford shares a batch of photos today from Ethridge, Tennessee.
There has been some discussion over whether an Amish community exists at Verdigre in Nebraska. Here’s what I wrote a year ago in the Nebraska Amish state guide: The Verdigre area (Knox County) was home to another Amish settlement founded by Amish from Michigan in 2003. The pioneer couple, Eddie and Mattie Petersheim, were profiled in a newspaper article shortly after arriving in Nebraska. The Petersheims sought…
The best known Amish community in Ohio is of course the huge Holmes County settlement, home to around 30,000 Amish. Next would be the Geauga County community, the fourth largest of all Amish settlements, with a little less than half the population of Holmes County. Those may be the most well known Ohio Amish locations, but there are many other Amish settlements scattered across the…
Texas is home to one small Amish community, near Beeville, county seat of Bee County. Reader Debbie shares photos and comments today following a visit to the community. Stacked up against the verdant lands of Lancaster or midwestern Amish communities this is hardscrabble territory, which the photos here reveal. About businesses, Debbie comments that “There is a main store at the beginning of the settlement….
The Harmony, Minnesota Amish community is the largest in the state. In the video below, a television station visits the community and interviews an Amishman named Dennis as well as a local tour guide. It’s a brief but enjoyable look at this conservative Swartzentruber settlement. I don’t recall a lot of cases in which Swartzentruber Amish appeared on camera. Dennis gives a nice interview here;…
Michigan’s Branch County is found on the southern end of the state, on the Indiana border. The two counties to its south are Lagrange County and Steuben County, Indiana, both with an Amish presence, particularly heavy in Lagrange. Head west from Branch County and you’ll reach the Amish of St. Joseph County, Michigan’s largest settlement. Hillsdale County to the east has an Amish population, as…
The Ethridge, Tennessee Amish community is the largest in the South. It’s a Swartzentruber Amish settlement founded in the 1940s. Today there are well over 2,000 Amish living here. Typical of Swartzentruber settlements, it is a farming community supplemented by a lot of small shops and home enterprises. Amish commerce extends off the farm with some selling products off the back of the buggy in…