Dudley Farm Historic State Park facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Dudley Farm
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Dudley Farm visitor center
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 Location in Florida
Location in the United States
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| Location | Alachua County, Florida, U.S. |
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| Nearest city | Newberry |
| Area | 325 acres (1.32 km2) (NRHP-listed area) 240 acres (97 ha) (NHL-designated area) |
| Built | October 4, 2002 |
| NRHP reference No. | 100006234 |
| Designated NHLD | January 13, 2021 |
Dudley Farm Historic State Park, often called Dudley Farm, is a special place in Newberry, Florida. It's like a living museum where you can see what farm life was like a long time ago. This farm is so important that it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Later, in 2021, it was named a National Historic Landmark. This means it's one of the most important historic places in the entire country! You can find it at 18730 West Newberry Road.
Contents
Welcome to Dudley Farm!
Dudley Farm is a great example of a working farm from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. It shows how families lived and worked the land. The park covers about 325 acres, which is like 240 football fields!
What is Dudley Farm?
This historic park has 21 old buildings and 13 other structures. You can explore the original family farmhouse, which is filled with furniture from that time. There's also an old kitchen building from the 1880s. You can even see a general store and post office, just like they used to be. A special area for making cane syrup is also part of the farm. Everything is set up to look just as it did many years ago.
Exploring the Farm
When you visit, you'll find a visitor center and a gift shop. These are located in the southern part of the park. The visitor center used to be a house built in 1918. The gift shop looks exactly like an old store from a 19th-century Florida turpentine plantation. You can also take a short nature walk through a Florida hammock. This is a cool, shady forest area.
A Look at Farm Life
To get to the main farm area, you follow a trail from the visitor center. Dudley Farm is a working farm, meaning they still raise animals there. You can see a special kind of cow called a Cracker cattle herd. There's also at least one Florida Cracker horse. You'll also find chickens and turkeys, just like the kinds that were common on farms in the late 1800s and early 1900s. For a while, this farm was famous for producing lots of eggs! The farm shows how agriculture changed in Florida from the 1850s to the 1940s.
How it Became a Park
After the 1940s, the farm was mostly used for subsistence farming. This means the family grew just enough food for themselves. The last family member to live on the farm was Myrtle Dudley. She was the youngest of the third generation of Dudleys. When she passed away in 1996, she left the farm to the Florida Park Service. This is why we can all visit and learn about this amazing piece of history today!
