Experience frontier and pioneer life before 1840! Participate as a re-enactor, trader, etc.! FCHS was founded to enable interactive and historical reenactments in our Rendezvous, museums, and our living history village called Loyal. All these events make history come alive while making it interesting, fun, and most importantly, relevant.
Famous for our Trail of Courage Living History Festival, Redbud Trail Rendezvous and Round Barn Museum, we are surrounded by historic round barns and located in the birthplace of the first Tarzan, Elmo Lincoln and other famous people. Offering around-the-clock accessibility to information about special events, project updates, volunteer opportunities, and event registrations, we invite you to visit often. Photographs, related news articles, as well as a calendar are included to enable you to be an active participant. Join us as we travel through the pages of history.
Living History Village 1900-1925
Fulton County’s Living History Village is called Loyal, Indiana, for a little village that used to exist a few miles west of the museum. Originally named Germany, Indiana, the people changed the name to Loyal in 1918 when the U.S. was at war with Germany.
Loyal, Indiana, now depicts 1900-1925. This period of our history is known as the GOLDEN AGE OF AGRICULTURE because farmers made a profit and they could afford labor-saving equipment like hay elevators and riding cultivators and round barns! More round barns were built in Indiana than any other state. Round barns were an experimental structure touted by the Agricultural colleges as the most economical and best barn ever designed. It saved the farmer labor by having the animals all face the center for feeding.
The period is also called the GOLDEN AGE OF INDIANA LITERATURE because of so many great writers, such as James Whitcomb Riley, George Ade, Booth Tarkington, Gene Stratton Porter, etc.
The first quarter of the 20th century was a time of unprecedented change: from horse power to cars and aeroplanes, from isolation to World War I’s global involvement. Cars and tractors were replacing horses — blacksmiths were converting their shops into garages. The industrial revolution had reached the home and the farm, and everything was changing, including clothing styles, cooking utensils, labor-saving gadgets such as vacuum cleaners and apple peelers.