To walk through the streets of the Little Log House Pioneer village is to catch visions from the past.

Hundred-year-old tractors putter past six-shooter-strapped cowboys as WWII soldiers saunter before 1950s-era diners. The aptly-named Memory Lane, one of the main thoroughfares upon which the Pioneer Village is built, is where visitors of the Little Log House Pioneer Village Antique Power Days can see it all.

Each year for one weekend, the Little Log House Pioneer Village opens its doors to visitors, re-enactors, historians and vendors alike as the village comes alive with guests and workers.

The Little Log House Pioneer Village started as its titular little log cabin in 1987 when Steve Bauer, owner of the Little Log House Pioneer Village, discovered a cabin dating back to the 1850s beneath an existing Hastings home while it was being demolished. Bauer saved the timbers and reconstructed the cabin on his farm.

In the decades since, the village of restored antique buildings including a post office, train depot, printing shop and church have sprung up around the log cabin in addition to a replica of the Hastings spiral bridge over a pond.

Of the buildings Bauer collects, historical value is key: “it can’t be normal,” said Bauer.

Each building has been refurbished and contains ephemera of that time including working printing presses, period dental equipment and much, much more.

“Rather than collect baseball cards, I collect buildings,” said Bauer.

Nearly all the dozens of buildings that compose the village were similarly set to be demolished: “of all the buildings, I think I bought maybe two of them,” said Bauer.

The process of moving buildings is not a subtle one. Buildings are put up onto flat beds and require state permits and certified escorts for transport. Because transporting buildings often takes up the entire street, buildings have to be moved during the night from 1-5 a.m.

While the process is far from new for Bauer and the village, each move is different depending on the building itself.

“We have it figured out,” quipped Bauer.

New this year is the Minute Man Service Station, a gas station and car shop dating back to the 1930s.

The garage officially is M. G. Hardstesf Garage out of St. Paul, which sat on a vacant lot for decades before being moved and restored by Bauer.

The store sports pricing from towing cars for $2.50 (a staggering $4 for overnight towing) to tire tube changes starting $2.00 (with a $0.50 surcharge for each patch after that).

Inside, the accoutrement of 1930s filling stations from branded clocks to oil cans can be seen including a glimpse into what fast food looked like nearly 100 years ago.

The Heinz-branded instant soup machine allowed customers to choose their flavor of soup can and set it upon the machine to be heated and ready in only two minutes. The cost of such a service was $0.15 for each “large bowl.”

What service!

Another new addition this year is the model train ‘John Deere Heaven,’ created by Conner Bauer. The model train setup is a homage to late 2000s DVD series John Deer Heaven that featured John Deere toys.

The picturesque green and yellow village features model trains, hand-painted props and even some of the original buildings from the DVD series.

Conner Bauer spent the better part of year building the replica town, all the way down to the green and yellow cows that can be seen in the miniature fields.

While the model matches neatly with this year’s theme of John Deere, it will return next year if just to assert John Deere’s dominance over other brands, according to Conner Bauer.

Another historical display is courtesy of Minnesota-based WWII women reenactors The Cat’s Meow.

Reenactors showcased both the civilian and military roles of women during the Second World War from war correspondents to packing parachutes to maintenance on planes.

As to what exactly women did during the war: “what they didn’t do is probably a better question,” said Reenactor Alyssa Wirth.

According to Wirth, the organization started because many WWII reenactments often entirely lacked women’s role during the war.

The exhibit showcased the uniforms of various women including Elizabeth Lent from the Women Army Corp. While reenactor Alyssa Cygan actually met Lent’s daughter, “I have no idea what she did.”

Many women who participated in the war didn’t talk about it for many of the same reasons soldiers returning home didn’t talk about the war. Cygan describes many families not knowing they had female relatives who participated in the war until decades later.

While The Cat’s Meow prefers to know about the individual woman who wore the uniform, many WWII uniforms can be found heavily altered for civilian wear, a process called ‘civilianizing.’

After the war, many women would continue to wear their uniforms, removing pocket flaps and epaulettes and replacing the military-bright buttons, turning the uniform into a suitcoat or blazer.

In the Antique Power Days’ 34 year, those who first may have visited the event as children are returning as parents. That “intergenerational appear,” is key to the ethos of the event said Steve Bauer.

Be it tractors or cowboys or the families passing through “There’s a lotta memories being shared.”