The museums of the valley:
SANTA YNEZ VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN MUSEUM
Solvang Area is fortunate to have the quality of Museum's to remember her heritage.
COMING TO AMERICA.... Denmark contributed its share to the great wave of European immigration to America during the period 1875 - 1915. In the 1880's alone nearly 90,000 members of Denmark's population relocated to North America.
Many of these immigrants had been follower of the Grundtvigian folk school movement in Denmark. So naturally they strove to recreate these schools in America. Their hope was to preserve their culture while assimilating to a new country.
Four of these schools were started in the Midwest by the Danish communities of Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, and Minnesota. About the same time a need for Danish Lutheran pastors was solved with the creation of a seminary in 1896. It is from these schools that a group of Danish educators formed the idea of creating a folk school on the west coast.
COMING TO SOLVANG...In 1910 a search was made through out the west and finally the group heard that a portion of an old Mexican land grant, "Rancho San Carlos de Jonata", in central California was for sale.
Upon seeing the fertile land, flowing river, oak covered hills and ample room to grow, they knew they had found their location.
They named their new home Solvang for the Danish word meaning "sunny fields". In 1911 the Danish-American colony of Solvang was born. Families from across America began to move to sunny California.
The museums of the valley: (again)
SANTA YNEZ VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN MUSEUM
GASOLINE MUSEUM / DRY LAKES RACING HALL OF FAME
