Residents in southeast Iowa have the opportunity to experience a local culture and see two prominent collections from a Washington County historian.

To help raise money for the Ainsworth Opera House Community Center, local historian Mike Zahs will be leading a guided bus tour of the Washington and Kalona area this Wednesday. Participants will get the chance to see over 100 pieces of Zahs’ Nativity collection at Hills Bank in Washington along with his historical feed sack collection at the Kalona Historical Village and Museum. During the lunch hour, the tour will make a stop at an Amish home in Kalona to enjoy a meal and do some shopping at local Amish businesses. Zahs explains that after doing some research, it was found that his Nativity collection is the largest in the world, “Several people did investigations as to what the largest Nativity collection in the world was at that time. And everybody that looked into that found that the largest Nativity collection in the world was in northern Italy. It had 700 fewer sets than in our collection at that time.”

Zahs added that there are about 2,500 sets in his collection and that he hopes to find a spot to display the whole collection sometime this year. Both the Nativity and historical feed sack collections are on display until February 1st. Participants will meet at the Ainsworth Opera House Community Center at 9 a.m. and return at 4 p.m. Cost is $65 per person and all proceeds go towards sustaining the opera house.