The dramatically expanded and redesigned Allen County Museum is a premier attraction for history lovers of all ages. Railroad buffs will enjoy seeing the 1925 Shay Locomotive, Lima City Street Railway motorman's cab and interurban exhibits. The Children's Discover Center offers hands-on activities for kids including a general store, one-room schoolhouse, Native American wigwam and large model railroad layout. Whether your interest is natural history, the Civil War, transportation, or John Dillinger's gang, you'll find it all at the Allen County Museum. The institution also offers the Elizabeth M. MacDonell Memorial Library, a favorite among family history researchers, and the John H. Keller Railroad Archives featuring thousands of photographs, builders' prints, and Lima Locomotive Works documents. Families and individuals welcome year round. Bus and group tours welcome...call to schedule your visit. AAM accredited.

620 W. Market Street, Lima
419-222-9426
1:00-5:00 p.m. Tuesday-Friday
1:00-4:00 p.m. Saturday-Sunday
Closed Mondays and national holidays
www.allencountymuseum.org
Tour Guides available for pre-arranged tours. No admission fee. Donations welcomed.

Contemporary art has a home in the Victorian-era mercantile building renovated by ArtSpace/Lima on Town Square in the heart of downtown Lima. There's always something new in the changing gallery exhibitions featuring local and regional artists working in all media. In the Gallery Shoppe, original artwork including paintings, jewelry, ceramics, glass, and cards by the area's most respected artists is on display as well as other unique art replicas. Many art enrichment classes, workshops, and special events are offered throughout the year for art-lovers of all ages.
Annual Spring Art Show, High School Art Invitational and Rallies in the Square!

Banquet capacity for 70.

Artspace/Lima
65-67 Town Square Lima, OH 45801
419-222-1721
www.artspacelima.com
Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm
Saturday 10am-2pm
Closed Sunday and Monday

This garden has grown to include over 30 mini-themed gardens and child-inspired works of art, with historical elements which relate to Allen County's rich history. It is an interactive green oasis for "children" of all ages! This is a privately funded effort to establish a public garden space designed for children.

The Children's Garden offers hands-on educational opportunities to learn about gardening and horticulture and provides children, families and the community with an attractive gathering place.

Garden Location:
620 W. Market Street
Lima, Ohio 45801
Allen County Museum Complex
419-302-4234
Open May through October, dawn to dusk

Folklore museum about the opening of the Miami-Erie Canal and the birth of Delphos. The Canal Commission has an archival collection from the entire historic period of the region, from an 1863 note to letters home from the Ohio 116th to hundreds of manuscript pages once used by the Paul Whiteman Band. There is an 1846 log house reconstructed in the museum, canal related artifacts from tiny bottles filled with abandoned patient medicines to the parts of the "Marguerite" that had been pulled from the Miami-Erie Canal in 1989 by 57 Delphos youngsters.
Walking tours of historic homes and buildings and refreshments available upon request.

Groups by appointment.
Admission: Free
www.canalcommission.com
241 N. Main Street
Delphos, Ohio 45833
419-695-7737
Thursdays 9am-11am
Saturdays & Sundays 1pm-3pm
Groups and Special Tours: By Appointment
Closed Holidays

The Welsh Community Museum was established to serve as a center for Welsh culture, local history and genealogy.
Welsh culture, language, religion and customs have played an important role in the cultural fabric of Northwestern Ohio since the early 19th century.
Gomer, where the museum is located, was established in the 1830's by Welsh immigrants. It sits along the banks of the Ottawa River and Pike Run.
Visit this center for Welsh culture and see memorabilia, artifacts, papers and pictures perpetuating the understanding of the Welsh heritage and culture so important to Northwest Ohio.

7365 Gomer Road
Gomer, Ohio 45809
Located directly across from the Gomer Church of Christ
419-642-2538 or 419-642-5911
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.welsh-society.org
Open 2nd and 4th Sundays of the Month 130pm-4pm
Also by appointment

Harrod Railroad Park

See and touch the Shay Locomtive, manufactured in September 1905 at the Lima Locomotive Works.
S.R. 309 east of Lima, approximately 10 miles
South on Napoleon Road for 2 miles
Napoleon Road
Harrod, Ohio 45850
419-648-7032
Open all year during daylight hours. Call for tours and information.

Harrod Veterans Memorial Park

The Veterans Memorial Park lies adjacent to the Railroad Heritage Park and displays a a 155mm M114 A2 Howitzer Cannon, an Anchor from the USS Texas, an M60 A3 Battle Tank and a UH-1 Huey Helicopter. The park was created in honor and memory of all Veterans who served in the United States armed forces.
Both Veterans Memorial and Railroad Heritage Parks played a key role in attracting the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure in 2000.
They were also chosen by the State of Ohio to participate in the GOAL (Great Ohio Adventures in Learning)program.

Napoleon Road
Harrod, Ohio 45850
419-648-7032
Open all year during daylight hours. Call for tours and information.

The Lima Fire Fighters Memorial Museum is dedicated to those who presently serve, as well as those who have served since 1865, protecting the citizens of Lima. It is to these more than 600 fire fighters that we pay tribute. 

Dedicated on Memorial Day 1999, the Lima Fire Fighters Museum houses memorabilia from Lima's fire fighting history. From a 19th century horse-drawn steam pumper to the hero-inscribed honor walk, the museum perpetuates this great history of selfless duty.

You can learn about the heroic individuals who have served the Lima community for the last 150 years. View photos, newspaper accounts, even original equipment used to fight some of Lima's most devastating fires.

New statue added in July 2009 depicts a firefighter holding a child, symbolizing a rescue, each officer's hope when a person is trapped in a fire. In the other hand, he holds the helmet of a fallen fellow firefighter, representing the thing every firefighter hopes against.

Open for outdoor viewing from sun up til sun down. For tour arrangements call the fire chief's office at 419-221-5164 or the CVB offices at 419-222-6075.

On display at the Lincoln Park John H. Keller Memorial Railway Exhibit is a Nickel Plate S-3, 2-8-4, #779 Berkshire, the NKP caboose #1091, and the NKP Business Car #5. The 779 was the last of the Berks steam engines built for the Nickel Plate in Lima, Ohio at the Lima Locomotive Works in 1949.
The Lincoln Park Railway Exhibit is a proud participant and feature in the Great Ohio Adventures in Learning program created by the state of Ohio.

Open for outdoor viewing from sun up til sun down.
Guided tours by appointment.
For more information contact the City Parks and Recreation Department at 419-221-5195.

1139 E. Elm Street
Lima, Ohio 45804
419-221-5195
www.cityhall.lima.oh.us

Built in 1893, the MacDonell House is one of the few remaining examples of Victorian architectural elegance that once marked an area known as the "Golden Block" in Lima, Ohio. During the last two decades of the 19th century, Allen County flourished with the discovery of oil and the growth of the railroad industry. This mansion is a tribute to that prosperous period in it's history.
Features include: beautiful parquet floors, intricately hand-carved woodwork throughout, a two-story stained glass window accented by a grand staircase, a rare Viennese painting on a cobweb, a Wooten cabinet desk, an albino wild game and trophy room and so much more!
Guided tours available through the Allen County Museum.
$3.00 Admission

Part of the Allen County Museum Complex
632 W. Market Street
Lima, Ohio 45801
419-222-9426
www.allencountymuseum.org

1:00-5:00 p.m. Tuesday-Friday
1:00-4:00 p.m. Saturday-Sunday
Closed Mondays and national holidays

Musselman Library with rich historical collections is important to the Bluffton experience and supporting intellectual discovery of students, faculty and staff--and of scholars from around the world. These collections are the treasures of the institution...tracing the heritage back to the beginnings of Anabaptism. The Archives & Special Collections floor is located on the first floor of the 1965 addition to the Musselman Library and houses all archival and special collections owned by Musselman Library including the Mennonite Historical Collections founded in 1935 by the late Dr. C. Henry Smith as the Mennonite Historical Library. THe Mennonite Historical Collections reflect the Mennonite affiliation of Bluffton University and the Swiss tradition of many constituents. The Mennonite Historical Collections include a number of editions of key Anabaptist-Mennonite texts, periodicals with research and new for and about Mennonite and related groups, resources for genealogy research, secondary sources on Mennonite history and life, and historic materials from the Village of Bluffton and of surrounding communities. Material in the main library collection on the topics peace and general Anabaptist and Mennonite history support research in these areas. MHC materical are available for use by appointment.

1 University Drive
Bluffton, Ohio 45817
419-358-3275
www.bluffton.edu

By Appointment Only