Saturday, June 6, 2026
Éco-Musée d'Alsace
Today we're taking a trip back in time with a promise of old tractors for Chuck. We know the museum is open today because we checked the hours. It's only a short distance from Logelheim. And the day is sunny and mild.
The Éco-Musée is too big to take in all it offers in one day so we're glad for the opportunity to visit again. We know just where to park that is the shortest walk to the entrance. Once there, we were able to borrow a wheel chair for Pat since the éco-musée covers 240 acres and showcases 80 houses, farms, and out buildings. The theme of this open air museum is rural Alsace in the the early 20th century. The museum has collected its buildings from various locations in Alsace, taking them down carefully and reconstructing them on site. The insides of these buildings are furnished as early 20th century houses, shops, and workshops. We have decided to follow the map backwards so that Dave and I are sure to see new things.
As we left the visitor entry, lo and behold there was a tractor parked right in front of us. We started with number 60 on the map - the sawmill.
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| The sawmill |
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| Not sure what all these wheels and belts do, but they were impressive |
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| More sawmill equipment |
The next stop was a house brought from Sundhofen, the town next to ours. You could see the way it was constructed as its timbers and mud & daub walls were exposed.
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| Dave checking out the mud and daub walls |
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| The Sundhofen house |
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| Spaces between timbers were packed with circles of mud and daub speared on sticks then inset either horizontally of vertically into the space. This then was most often plastered over with a smooth layer on the inside and outside of the building. |
In the farm below, the upper level is living space, the lower level on the right is for animals and the lower left side has a display of how saddles were made. We continued past differently constructed houses and barns each from a different town and most of different ages. The oldest house had a 14th century date. Of course, the inside was changed over the centuries of different families living in it. And its current interior reflected early 20th century life.
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| Pat and Chuck leaving the animal quarters and walking to the saddlery under the porch |
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| Doesn't Chuck look like he belongs here? |
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| Lynn, Pat, and Chuck in another farmyard. |
The tower seems a bit incongruous to this rural landscape as it represents medieval city dwelling. It was acquired when Mulhouse was doing extensive renovations and removing historic houses and ramparts during the 1980s. At first thought to be a defensive tower in the ramparts, it was discovered to be a home for a family of the minor nobility. The formal gardens are reminders of the cloister gardens of abbeys where monks grew medicinal and other herbs as well as flowers.
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| The tower's first level had no access to the floors above it and was likely used for storage. The entrance to the tower living quarters was by means of the wooden bridge. |
We passed the communal laundry with its wooden washboards ready to be used. In fact, this was how laundry was done in rural areas until the 20th century.
It's not unusual to see various farm animals on the streets or in the barns of the museum. They teach us how these animals were used for working the farms.
We've seen these black and white cows in the fields. They're black on the sides and white down the middle of their backs. We asked the woman who was leading this cow what they were. This breed is unique to Alsace and is called Vosgienne. They not only provide milk for Munster cheese, but they were used in farming for pulling plows. This particular bull was very docile and when I asked why, the woman handling the cow told us he no longer had testoserone.
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| In this barn, this billy goat was kept separate from the lady goats and had his own pen. |
Besides turkeys and geese, we saw a very sassy peacock in one of the farm yards. After strutting around for awhile, he gave us a show of his plummage. Well, maybe he was actually showing off for the other peacock who was answering his calls.
Of course there were storks.
And of course, there was a tractor collection. Chuck seemed to know all the brands and either owns or used to own some of them.
And so ended our trip back in time. We drove back home to a modern kitchen and a washer and dryer.
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