Visitors can tour 18 historic structures making up an authentic (not recreated) farm complex representing the lifestyle of the 1880s through 1930s.

[ Story by Barbara Drake • Photography by Ray Stanyard ]

Sometimes the smallest things can speak volumes about a way of life gone by. Coming up the dirt road to the Dudley Farm Historic State Park, in Newberry, early one morning, a visitor might be forgiven for daydreaming. Dew is sparkling on the fields, birds are singing in the oaks, and the garden paths leading to the 1880s farmhouse are fragrant with heirloom roses. A wide front porch in the shade of the state champion red buckeye tree is lined with rocking chairs beckoning the visitor to sit down for a spell and cool off. From this vantage point, it's easy to imagine oneself living a nostalgic life of ease - languid days spent reading novels, embroidering linens, sipping lemonade -until the eye falls on a woven basket balanced on the porch railing. There, heaped to the basket's brim, lies a mound of green beans - real beans, fresh from the fields. It's then the realization dawns: these aren't some picturesque accessory, but a daily chore, put there to be picked over and snapped for the evening's meal.

Lessons in the values of hard work, resourcefulness and self-sufficiency abound at Dudley Farm Historic State Park, one of Florida's newest state parks. Opened to the public in December 2001, the Dudley Farm is a living-history working farm, encompassing 325 acres of the pioneer Dudley family's original 640-acre homestead. Here over a span of 124 years, three generations of Dudleys lived and worked the land, most of that without the aid of mechanization or electricity.

Today visitors can tour 18 historic structures making up an authentic (not recreated) farm complex representing the lifestyle of the 1880s through 1940s. Staff members in period dress perform daily chores, raise crops original to the farm, and even encourage visitors to lend a hand, if they feel so inclined. On every level, the park celebrates old-time farming as a dynamic process, rather than as a static exhibit. As members of the Friends of Dudley Farm, a Citizen Support Organization, note: "We want those who follow us to feel what it is like to till the earth, plow a field, plant a crop, bring the harvest in, mark the change of seasons and, like the Dudleys, call a place 'home.' "

   To Learn More: