A granddaughter stands with her mother and grandmother at a respectful distance from the low white picket fence that guards the working replica of a 19th century broom squire’s shop. The women listen politely as the broom squire, Pat Haight, describes for them how he assembles brooms of all sizes and uses.

Haight is one of several living history exhibitors at the Harold Warp Pioneer Village in Minden, the seat of Kearney County. The Village’s 26 structures form a sprawling museum filled with tens of thousands of artifacts that evoke daily life over the past two centuries.

In the shop, each broom begins in the grip of an 1890s broom vise and ends in an 1860s broom cutter, neatly slicing the ragged edge of the broom’s dried and bound-up sorghum. Haight invites the shy granddaughter forward to help with a crucial step in the middle of manufacturing: pushing a thick, heavy needle and red thread through the tightly bunched broom straw.

Among Haight’s creations is one inspired by the baseball umpire broom he remembers seeing on television. One of his Minden school teachers, a hard-core baseball fan, tuned a classroom TV to an afternoon World Series game. Haight watched as the umpire swept home plate with a hand broom. The memory of that sweep later inspired Haight to add umpire brooms to his all-star lineup. They sell out quicker than a Bob Gibson four-seam fastball and add up to a career broom total of more than 6,000.

The Harold Warp Pioneer Village is a one-of-a-kind museum that some Nebraskans liken with complete conviction to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. There are similarities. Each had its start with a patriotic man expressing his gratitude for America. Each has drawn millions of visitors. But there is one key difference. Pioneer Village is one man’s story of American ingenuity from 1830 to the present – a story told in note after note that Warp painstakingly wrote and rewrote for each of his 50,000 collectibles, enough words to fill the 500-page book he published.

Harold Warp grew up an impoverished child in a sod house near Minden. As a student, in a moment of mischief for an otherwise dutiful pupil who earned perfect attendance awards, Warp carved his name on his wooden school desk. That desk is in the Country School that Warp relocated to the Village.

Warp was a pioneer of the plastics industry – he was the first manufacturer of polyethylene food wrap. His Chicago company Warp Brothers grew rapidly, manufacturing consumer products such as shelf lining and self-storage bags. He spent some of his plastics treasure creating the Village, his tribute to America, the Midwest and Minden. As a child of Norwegian emigrants, he loved his country for what it made possible in his life and so many others. He chose Minden for his Village in memory of his upbringing and in proximity to his 11 siblings and extended family. The Village opened in 1953. Warp died in 1994.

The Pioneer Village anchors the intersection of U.S. 34/U.S. 6 and Nebraska Highway 10 in Kearney County. Runza operates a restaurant within walking distance. It comes in handy – because the Village’s story is so enthralling, like a summer novel you can’t put down, visitors find it hard to walk away mid-story, but eventually hunger makes its demands, and the Village isn’t serving a hot lunch.

Towering above Pioneer Village is the Farmers Cooperative Grain and Supply Co. elevator, built in 1903 – an emblem of Kearney County’s agricultural roots. Warp’s career in plastics began with agriculture, specifically an idea for improving the health of farm chickens: a sheet of durable plastic that would shield chickens from wind and cold, but allow sunlight in, at less cost than glass windows.

Pioneer Village displays several farm implements, including an enormous steam-powered thresher. Much of the rest of the collection, about 99 percent of it, comes from auctions across North America. One of the few items that is sourced locally is easily overlooked: a humble but useful tool for its era – a folding end gate for unloading grain gradually from a horse-drawn cart, invented and patented by the late Minden farmer Oscar Wright. Warp didn’t overlook even the smallest detail in telling the story of Minden and Kearney County.

The Village orchestrates its displays in a fashion no other museum attempts – chronological, like the timeline of an old-fashioned novel. Thematic displays show the evolution of every facet of Midwestern life, from kitchens to fine art. The pen collection, with more pens than your drawer of spares at home could ever hold, stores enough ink to write a million letters home. There is much more, in more categories – more than can be viewed and appreciated in an afternoon, or a month of afternoons.

The Village employs living history exhibitors to create items that recall prairie life.

Sue White operates the Village’s vintage loom. She’s making a rug for the gift shop, using techniques taught to her by Warp’s grandnephew Marshall Nelson. His mother, Lois, one of Warp’s nieces, worked at the Village for 42 years, creating items that guests could take home.

“People are coming back even now, saying, ‘When I was here, I was just a little girl, the spinning lady gave me something, and I still have it today,’ ” Nelson said.

For Warp family members and Minden residents, the Pioneer Village provided many of them their first job, and for a few like Haight the broom squire, employment in their later years. The Village makes them proud of their small town, population 2,977. They recall vividly their encounters with the whirlwind Warp.

Minden resident Marcy Brandt remembers Warp as a “Paul Bunyan” figure, “larger than life.” She worked summers mowing the Village’s lawns, painting signs and doing housekeeping in the Pioneer Village Motel. As an adult, she moved away, but returned in 2008.

“It was a no-brainer to move back,” Brandt said. “The little town of my childhood memory has never broken 3,000 residents, but its claim to fame is the No. 1 tourist attraction in the state of Nebraska. That’s pretty dang impressive.”

Brandt runs the Minden Opera House and is a member of the committee that will help Pioneer Village find ways to attract a new generation of visitors.

Nebraskans who’ve made the Village a day or weekend trip fondly remember the Village’s steam-powered carousel, now under repair, and summertime celebrations, since canceled but scheduled to return.

Sarah Adam, 20, first rode the merry-go-around as a 5-year-old. She and her father, Bill, visit the Village every year, with Sarah hoping for new Village giveaways for her collection back home. There is nothing to collect today, and the carousel is still down. That saddens Adam, but she is eager to see the Village’s charm restored in time for future visits.

Warp Village’s ongoing investment in automobiles draws repeat visits. The Minden museum’s creator loved progress, but he loved the power and prestige that propelled four wheels even more. The Village displays at least 350 cars parked in multiple buildings, with new collectibles arriving all the time. Cars and horse-drawn carriages occupy the Village’s prime real estate – the showroom immediately adjacent to the guest entrance and exit.

Close by the entrance is Warp’s favorite ride: a dark blue 1937 Cord Winchester 812 that could achieve a top speed of 92 mph. Warp liked its style, and so did Hollywood; one like it starred in the movie The Shadow. Warp was so fond of the Cord, he had his initials HW painted on the driver door.

Monica Miller sells Village admission and answers guests’ questions, a job she’s held since Warp hired her in 1979. Between guest arrivals and phone calls, Miller recalls that Warp had “enormous energy,” and “drove cars like a demon.” She once asked him why he didn’t sail. “Too slow,” Warp said.

Warp drove the Cord too fast for Miller. She preferred to stay put at the front desk. Not many in Minden lived life at Warp’s speed.