A small museum in the centre of Ponca, set in an 1880s-vintage frame blacksmith shop that operated continuously until 1968. The entire shop interior — forge, bellows, anvil, racks of horseshoes and harnesses, ledger books, and customer correspondence — has been left exactly as it was on the day the shop closed. It is a rare survival: most American small-town blacksmith shops were stripped or burned long ago.
The shop is run by the Dixon County Historical Society and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hours are limited — usually weekend afternoons in summer — and entry is by donation. Worth twenty minutes if the door happens to be open.