This authentic one-room school house is complete with books, desks, and Regulator wall clock.
Note the double desk and the old stove. Children of pioneer days walked or rode horseback for many miles each day to attend classes.
Made by Wurlitzer about 40 years ago, this is the world’s largest Concert Band Organ.
All visitors seem to enjoy climbing up to the cab of the old C.M & St. P. R.R. caboose. This old veteran of steam-driven railroad days was used when South Dakota was first homesteaded. It is completely furnished with authentic pot-bellied stove and other equipment of its day.
The PIONEER AUTO MUSEUM opened in May of 1954 with 25 cars and a single building. As time went on a collection of old farm machinery and tractors blossomed in back. And as old original buildings such as jails, schools, churches, banks and many others were doomed to replacement in the community, Mr. Geisler added yet another facet of olden day preservation to the museum. China, toys, glassware, lamps, musical antiquities and other things too numerous to mention here were added. So many things, in fact, that many buildings such as the general store, the church, and the school house are fully stocked and equipped with authentic original trappings. Today the museum boasts 25 buildings with over 200 vehicles plus thousands of other memorabilia. Because of Mr. Geisler’s fondness for Ford automobiles, a special building in the museum, Henry’s Ford Garage, contains only Fords. In 1956 Mr. Geisler sold the Chevrolet-John Deere Agency and purchased the Ford Agency in Murdo, which is managed by another son, Dave.
PIONEER AUTO MUSEUM is more than a mere tourist attraction. It is a tribute to a man and woman and their family who have had the foresight to preserve the past. The thousands of items to be seen in a fine state of preservation would have doubtless been lost to the dumps and junk piles. Instead posterity can visit and maybe “live a little” in the days of their forefathers in authentic surroundings.
Visit with Dick and John. They will be happy to give you interesting and expert information on anything in the PIONEER AUTO MUSEUM. They might even relate a few of the interesting and amusing tales of how the cars were found and moved from over 40 states to the PIONEER AUTO MUSEUM in Murdo, South Dakota.