Latest News

So much is happening at the Pasto Agricultural Museum this APD. Stop in and see what's new, meet up with old friends and alumni, and take home a little bit of history! August 14-15-16, open late on Wednesday til 8 p.m.

Hello and thank you Friends! As we draw to a close our museum season and prepare to spend time with family and friends I want to extend our appreciation for your support of the Pasto Agricultural Museum through the year.

Join us as we celebrate the close of a fabulous Fall season at the museum with our annual Ice Cream Social. Sunday November 22 from 1pm at the Pasto Agricultural Museum.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The first in a series of fall open houses at Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum is scheduled for Sept. 13. The events are scheduled for Sundays after home football games. "Our home football game open house series is a great time to experience the Pasto Agricultural Museum. We feature a different part of the collection from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. each Sunday after home football games, so the experience for visitors is different each weekend," said Curator Rita Graef.

The sixth in a series of fall open houses at Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum on Nov. 16 will feature a special exhibit from the Ecosystem Science and Management Department's bird and mammal collection. From 1 to 4 p.m., parts of the historic collection will be on display, and Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources, will provide background information and answer questions, according to Rita Graef, Pasto Museum curator. "We are excited to share this special research and teaching collection with the public," Graef said. "It includes mounted birds and research samples, and some of the specimens are from the 1800s."

The fifth in a series of fall open houses at Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum on Nov. 2 will look at historic logging and timber production. From 1 to 4 p.m., museum staff will share old photos and stories of the days in the late 1800s and early 1900s when Williamsport was the logging capital of the world, according to Rita Graef, Pasto Museum curator. Jim Walizer, a board member of the Pennsylvania Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation, will share his passion for the history of timber, logging and forestry in the commonwealth in a presentation beginning at 2 p.m.

The second in a series of fall open houses at Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum will focus on meat preservation through history. The event is scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 21.

The third in a series of fall open houses at Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum will be an "Early Extension Movies Matinee." The films will start at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28. Fans of old films and early farm life -- and people who are interested in film production -- will want to see the Pasto Museum film fest that marks 100 years of Cooperative Extension, according to Rita Graef, Pasto Museum curator.

Last Ag Progress Days we featured “from Threshing Floor to Table” and reached over 8000 visitors in the museum and outside for our demonstrations. We need your help to do it again this year!

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A unique timber frame structure, built onsite during Penn State's Ag Progress Days, Aug. 12-14, will be included in the Pasto Agricultural Museum's annual silent auction. The large-shed-size building will be constructed using historic methods and traditional tools during the show by a team of craftsmen in a demonstration area near the museum at the top of Main Street on the Ag Progress Days site. The team, led by Rudy Christian, of Burbank, Ohio, will include representatives from the Timber Framers Guild, Friends of Ohio Barns and Preservations Trades Network. In addition to showing timber frame work, the craftsmen will demonstrate the tools and techniques for creating hand-hewn timber, split shake shingles, split rail fencing and hand riven pegs.

The Penn State Pasto Agricultural Museum will hold its Annual Silent Auction at the 2014 Ag Progress Days on Tuesday and Wednesday, August 12th and 13th.

Master Gardener Garden Fair & Plant Sale Find something interesting: Shop, Learn, Explore…at the Pasto Agricultural Museum this Saturday May 17th 9-3!

Join Us For the Annual Luncheon June 3rd! We saved a table for you down front…

LOAD UP YOUR WAGONS AND HEAD TO THE PASTO AG MUSEUM THIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON!

Visit the museum at 11 am, lunch and meeting to follow until 2:30 pm. Join us to review what we have accomplished, see what we have planned, be a part of our future.

The museum will open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 18, in conjunction with the third annual Master Gardener Garden Fair and Plant Sale. It also will open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 7 and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 8 in conjunction with Timber 2013, the Forest Products Equipment and Technology Exposition.

Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum will hold its first open house of 2013 during Blue-White Weekend on Sunday, April 21. The museum, which features hundreds of rare farm and home implements from the "muscle-power era," before the advent of electricity and gasoline-powered engines, also will be open for the Master Gardener Garden Fair and Plant Sale, May 18; The Pennsylvania Timber Show, June 7-8; and Ag Progress Days, Aug. 13-15. According to curator Rita Graef, the museum's staff has been working diligently on new exhibits that offer many hands-on activities to demonstrate what life and work was like long ago. "On April 21, the Sunday of Blue-White Weekend, we'll be open from 1 to 4 p.m.," she said.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Jerome K. Pasto, associate dean emeritus in the College of Agricultural Sciences and founder and namesake of the Pasto Agricultural Museum, died March 17 at the age of 97.

The last in a series of Sunday open houses at Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum during home football weekends this fall will focus on the history of lighting before the advent of electricity. The event is scheduled for 1 to 4 p.m. Nov. 25. In today's modern society, we take electrical lighting for granted, and most seldom consider how the development of lighting technology provided an opportunity for people to read and work at night, and to extend working hours in a day, noted Rita Graef, Pasto Museum curator. "This would have been especially important in agricultural communities, where families spent all day tending crops, taking care of livestock or working in cottage industries," she said.... For the complete story, visit...

The next in a series of open houses at Penn State's Pasto Agricultural Museum will focus on the history of timbering in Pennsylvania and its significance in America's past....