The Frontier Culture Museum is the biggest open-air living history museum in the Shenandoah Valley, as well as one of the highest rated family-friendly attractions and one of the top tourist destinations in Virginia. Costumed historical interpreters show the life and customs of the indigenous Native American tribes in Virginia, the arrival of the German, English and Irish settlers along the Great
Wagon Road, and the painful journey of the enslaved Africans to the first permanent British colony in North America. Visitors may also interact with a blacksmith at an Irish Forge, woodworkers, tailors, and yarn spinners, and learn how the early settlers of America cooked and worked the land. The American journey starts here, with these early pioneers that inhabited America's First Frontier, the Blue Ridge Mountains, prior to the Westward Expansion of the 19th Century. As a cultural center, the museum features eleven historic exhibits, including traditional rural buildings from Europe, Africa, and America. It also hosts cultural events and special private events, such as weddings, receptions, board meetings and company retreats, and can accommodate both small and large groups of different school ages.
