“New Dawn on the Prairie” offers something for everyone who is interested in agriculture and/or railroad history in our region. The exhibit, in the newly remodeled and updated eastern gallery on DPM’s first floor, examines the development of agriculture from the first homesteaders in Dakota Territory to contemporary farm families with their mammoth machinery necessary to tend their huge fields and animal herds.

Experience life in a tarpaper shack, native prairie being broken with a horse-drawn, one bottom plow, a prairie kitchen, and an interactive computer station that will take you through prairie settlement from a variety of viewpoints.

Area rail history comes alive as you view an 1890s rail station with its ticket master, maps, and schedules ready to serve a woman passenger dressed in her finest traveling costume. Enjoy an operational, period model train running through old Aberdeen.

Finally enter a hallway transformed into a luxurious Pullman passenger car featuring an embossed brass ceiling with stenciled details and red velvet curtains framing exhibit windows filled with lots of railroad memorabilia and information.