This mid-nineteenth-century farm complex, plus other buildings which have been moved to the site, is operated by the Mahaska County Historical Society, and is open to the public. The 1852–1853 Nelson farmhouse is a late example of the Federal style. The building is of brick, and it is covered by a simple gable roof. The house boasts a porch across the entire front, within which is an entrance doorway with side lights and transom. The barn is a modest building with a gable roof, and sheathed in board-and-batten. Accompanying these buildings is the Nelson log cabin (1867), and a later summer kitchen, meat house, and windmill. Other buildings brought to the site are an “old country store,” a oneroom schoolhouse, an early voting house, a scale house, a post office, and the Coal Creek Friends Meetinghouse.