When you mix tourism and history, you frequently find people that love to visit Amish Country. Over much of the midwest you find Amish communities. Pennsylvania has Lancaster County. And the center of the Amish community in Ohio is Holmes, County. But just a short drive away — in Tuscarawas County you find what they call the gateway of Amish Country:  the village  of Sugarcreek, Ohio.  It’s a small town that is about as small as they come. But come weekends it’s packed by tourists that find it a  fascinating place to visit. It was founded by Amish Dairy farmers and Swiss cheese makers that arrived in the 1830’s. It’s now called Ohio’s Little Switzerland.

On the back roads, you will find many Amish farmers, but also horse breeders, wooden wheel makers and even families to restore or install old style windmills. Furniture and Amish cooking is also a big draw here. Come autumn, this is a popular place. In Sugarcreek you also find one of the world’s largest cuckoo clocks. Folks line up every half hour to watch the bird and a mechanized band play polka music.

The town is also the home of a wonderful place to learn about the days of steam powered trail locomotives.

The Age of Steam Roundhouse showcases one of the most extensive collections from the early days of steam.  The old style roundhouse was build by Jerry Joe Jacobson and his wife Laura to house the giant collection. He worked as a medical technician, but his first love was always the old steam trains. “He fell in love with trains as a little boy,” says his widow Laura. So he build is own rail line — The Ohio Central. It was based in Sugarcreek, but ran all over parts of Ohio. When he sold the Line, he used the funds to build an authentic Roundhouse and says Dan Condo, with the museum, “he loved sharing his collection with people.”

All around the region you can see some of the Amish Craftsmen using old tools to make nostalgic items. Leroy Yoder uses air power to make all the tack, the bitts, the reins, the harness used on horses. You will find many of the farmers using the draft horses to work the farms. Melvin Troyer rebuilds old style windmills. It’s a business started by his grandfather in the 1920’s. As he tells it, they sell many of them to “The English,” just for nostalgic reasons. Noah Stutzman is a wheel wright — making classic old wooden wheels for carriages, farm wagons, and even some of the early models of Model T Cars at his shop in Baltic, Ohio.

And a popular stop for tourists is the Alpine Hills Museum in Sugarcreek. It tells the story of the early days of cheese making.. and the Swiss Connection. In town you get to see and hear one of the largest cuckoo clocks, complete with dancers and a polka band.

A short drive away is Zoar Village. Zoar, which means “Place of Refuge,” was found by German religious separatists in 1871. The old buildings have been preserved, and give us an interesting look back to the early 19th century. One of the early waterways — The Ohio and Erie Canal went right past the village.