Warther Museum and Gardens

Ernest Warther was born in Dover in the 1880s and left school young to help support his family, herding cattle and later working in the local steel mill. He took up whittling as a boy, and it became the consuming passion of his life. Largely self-taught, he developed extraordinary skill and patience, and turned to the steam locomotive, the great machine of his age, as his life's subject.

Warther set out to carve the entire history of the steam engine, from the earliest examples through the great locomotives of his own day. He worked for decades, often in the evenings after his shifts, producing models of breathtaking intricacy. His talent drew wide notice, and he was reportedly hailed by a leading carver as the world's master carver, a title the museum still recalls.

Warther's locomotives are the heart of the museum, and their detail defies belief. Carved from ivory, ebony, walnut, and mother-of-pearl, without glue on many pieces, they capture every wheel, piston, rod, and rivet of the real machines. A number of the models are mechanical, their tiny hand-carved parts linked so that turning a crank sets the drive wheels and rods moving exactly as they would on a full-size engine.

The collection traces the evolution of the steam locomotive across its history, model after model, a kind of carved encyclopedia of the machine that built the modern world. Standing before them, visitors grasp not only the mechanical history but the almost unimaginable hours of patient handwork that went into each piece, all of it done by one man.

Warther supported himself in part by making knives, and knife making became a family trade that continues to this day. The Warther family still crafts knives on site, a living link to Ernest's original livelihood and a chance for visitors to see fine handwork carried on by his descendants.

The grounds hold more than the carvings. Ernest's wife Frieda assembled a vast collection of buttons, thousands upon thousands of them arranged in intricate patterns, a remarkable folk creation in its own right. The original family home and the surrounding gardens round out the visit, giving a sense of the family and the ordinary Ohio life from which such extraordinary work grew.

The carvings are indoors and can be enjoyed in any season, so the museum makes a fine stop whatever the weather. The gardens, though, come into their own in the warm months, when spring and summer plantings soften the grounds and make for a pleasant walk before or after touring the collection.

Fall brings comfortable weather and turning color to the Tuscarawas Valley, a lovely time to combine the museum with a wider tour of the surrounding Amish Country. Winter turns attention indoors to the carvings and the knife shop, and the region's quiet countryside has its own stark beauty under snow.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.