The architectural styles of the buildings range from early log cabins and colonial saltbox houses to federal style, Queen Anne, A-frames and Victorian. About 200 miniature buildings occupy the 6,000-square-foot museum, including the museum's store.
Three main exhibits make up the museum - The Timeline of American History, Copper Hollow Village and the Fantasy Forest.
The exhibition hall opens up to a timeline of American history that begins with an American Indian exhibit, followed by the colonial era and a Western town depicting the Westward movement.
"It's not like Hollywood movies of the Old West," Kagan-Moore noted.
It's more about educating people about expansion from the East and the Gold Rush, and other aspects of history "that you don't see in the normal media."
The timeline continues with a European immigration display complete with German room boxes.
"I want to tie in all about how immigration worked to make our country," she said.
That display is followed by the early Southwest in the 1800s with a large pueblo and bustling marketplace.
The timeline continues into the 20th century - the birth of jazz, depression-era homes, homes of the 1950s and 1960s, and pop culture homes of the '60s and '70s.
Most displays are accompanied by storytelling captions, but the details within each tiny scene allow the viewer to draw his or her own conclusion about what's going on.
"When people come out they really love the stories," Kagan-Moore said.
And though hard times in history are nearly impossible to avoid, Kagan-Moore said she wants to highlight "contributions, human interest stories about human strength."
The architecture and detail alone can't make that happen. The individual dolls have to help make each scene clear.
"(The dolls) are made to be active and emotional and realistic - all ages, sizes - and not necessarily pretty. They're regular people," Kagan-Moore said.
Most of the dolls are custom made, and done so by a British sculptor specifically for the museum. But they don't resemble a doll as someone may stereotypically envision it.
"They are like small people," Kagan-Moore said. "They are of varying ages, sizes and ethnic backgrounds."
And as one enters the village, he or she becomes part of a day in the life of the people of Copper Hollow - a fictional place representing a town in Kentucky or surrounding state around 1910.
"Depending on which way you turn, you may find yourself in a mansion district, watching a croquet game in an upscale park or observing the misbehavior of the boys (in the) Preparatory School for Boys," Kagan-Moore pointed out. "I've always been a storyteller. History is a story, stories of lives. That's the common thread people have. Some miss that those people in those days had as much hopes and dreams and conflict as we do."
Take another route in Copper Hollow and find yourself on the other side of the tracks in a neighborhood of factories, sweatshops, run-down rooming houses and eerily abandoned homes.
There's an antique church with the rectory and the governor's mansion, which all is across the street from the courthouse, the mayor's office and police station.
A project in Copper Hollow still under construction is an early black business district.
"(It) hopes to capture the feeling of the business district that once stood on Second Street in Danville," Kagan-Moore said, who is asking anyone with old photos of the district to share them with her for research purposes to complete the display. "That's a neighborhood that deserves recognition of its own."
At the edge of town stands Shaker Village of Copper Hollow. Men and women workshops, a meeting house, infirmary, dining hall and more make up the display.
"Staff from Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill have generously helped supply education material and advice for this display," Kagan-Moore said.
The final exhibit is the Fantasy Forest that leads the patron through a dark, walk-in cave filled with scenes of dragons, trolls and witches.
