May 28th Penn Farm, Cedar Hill, Texas

Demonstration tall grass prairie field at Penn Farrm

Penn Farm is located in the Cedar Hill State Park, so on the fourth night I spent there I decided to go see it. The farm was established by John Wesley Penn and his wife Lucinda in 1859. John died from a rattlesnake bite in 1898, but his wife Lucinda continued to run the operation. The Penn’s youngest son Andy inherited the farm and he and his wife Dee Etta continued to operate it for the rest his life. Andy died in 1964, so this family run farm and ranch existed for over a hundred years.

The site now tells the story of what farm life was like and how farming practices evolved over time as they transitioned from hand labor to renting to tenant farmers to mechanization. The “new” farm house, built in 1876 has been reconstructed and is now used as the park headquarters. The rest of the buildings and structures have been stabilized or rehabilitated.

Penn Family ca. 1890 from the Texas State Parks exhibit

Texas became a state in 1845 and started a proactive campaign to encourage families to come to Texas. In 1870 there were 61,000 farms in Texas, but by 1880 that number had grown to 174,000 – a pretty phenomenal growth rate.

One of the side stories of this place is the loss of nearly all of America’s tall grass prairie lands that once extended from Texas to Canada. These grasses that fed the stock on Texas farms was wiped out by cultivation for crops. This park is preserving small pieces of this once vast prairie.

Main barn

PS. Today I finished The Radium Girls, The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore. I have been able to listen to the audio book while driving – a book I downloaded while in Texas from Hoopla – a free service of the Oakland Public Library. Don’t ask me how that works but it does amazingly enough. It is a new book released this year and is the story of hundreds of young women who were killed by the radium industry and greedy corporate interests before we had the EPA and OSHA rules. If, like me, you’ve ever questioned, “why do I need to write a company safety plan?”, you should read this book. It will make you want to scream.

Farm equipment from various periods are found throughout the site

New home built in 1876

This is labelled the mother-in-law unit

Front porch of new residence

Interior of the barn

One of the farm buildings

Original residence once used by tenant farmers

Unusual wheel hub