Update as of June 2021: The Hickory Corners location has closed, and a re-opening will occur in Grand Haven, Michigan.

The simple lives of down-to-earth midwesterners have been made bite-size in the shrunken worlds on display at the Midwest Miniatures Museum. 

Hidden away on a little farm near the marvelously named town of Kalamazoo, is a tiny white farmhouse, that holds even tinier rooms inside it. The Midwest Miniatures Museum is a treasure trove of meticulously made miniature rooms that look like something out of Norman Rockwell’s toy chest. Quaint scenes and Americana are all the rage in the museum with a number of different tiny tableaus including a series of medical dioramas. Painstakingly recreated in 1:12 scale, the rooms cover such a midwestern sights as a turn-of-the-century doctor’s office, ophthalmologist, obstetrician’s, dentist’s and even a newborn baby wing. While the scenes depicted in the miniatures are quite banal, the details of each scene make them some of the more unusual miniatures ever built, with their tiny baby incubators, stirrups, foot-pedal-powered dentist’s drill, and tiny x-ray machine. In addition to the little vignettes, there are also a number miniature buildings and scaled-down dolls to complete the collection.