INTRODUCTION
The Baimbridge-Kanipe Farmstead is locally significant under National Register criterion A for its association with the settlement and agricultural development of Douglas County. With initial development starting in the 1850s, the farm was in continuous active agricultural use until 1983 when it was deeded to Douglas County for use as a public park by the last owner, Mildred Kanipe. The period of significance for the farm group is circa 1865-1957, which corresponds to the probable construction date of the current house to the fifty year mark, and includes all of the historic resources in the farm group. These resources include the house, horse barn, dairy barn, sheep shearing shed, carriage house, implement shed, livestock chute, historic orchard and circulation patterns. These features collectively represent a timeline of the history and variety of agricultural activity on the site over a period of over one-hundred years.
The Baimbridge-Kanipe Farmstead retains a high degree of integrity of location, materials, design, feeling and association as evaluated within its defined period of significance. The site’s integrity of setting is largely intact, though it has been compromised by the siting of a manufactured home between the house and the horse barn, and by nearby park improvements including construction of restroom facilities and the creation of a circular paved drive and parking lot. Within the period of significance, integrity of workmanship is largely intact; many of the outbuildings were altered over time (within the period of significance) as needed to allow for continued farm uses. Many of the buildings have been re-roofed with metal roofing. (See Figures 1-4)
The house is virtually intact, and remained without electricity or running water until the 1960s. The horse barn roof was altered sometime after 1930 to its current configuration, but does not appear to have been altered since. The dairy barn was most recently altered circa 1940, and has not sustained any obvious alterations since. Other buildings or structures have been updated and repaired as necessary and as expected for working farm buildings. Historic landscape features include the orchard and circulation features (roads). The historic fencing and the rabbit hutch seen in historic photographs have been removed.
EARLY DOUGLAS COUNTY HISTORY
The Umpqua/Douglas County region was initially explored by members of the Northwest Company an others in the early 1800s, and McKay’s Fort is generally accepted as having been the first non-native structure built in the region. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) later established Fort Umpqua along the Umpqua River in 1836, and maintained this post as a trade center until the early 1850s, in spite of the fact that the British had ceded their interests in the region in the mid-1840s.
American settlement of the area now known as Douglas County began in the 1840s, encouraged by the Organic Act (1843) and the Donation Land Claim Act (1850), which initially granted up to 640 acres of land for a husband and wife who lived on and worked their claim for four years. Early settlement buildings throughout western Oregon included an initial log cabin, constructed quickly to provide shelter, usually followed by a barn, and later a hewn log or perhaps a sawn-lumber house. The construction of the barn often preceded that of the permanent frame house.
In 1846 the Oregon-California Trail, a portion of which was also known as the Applegate Trail, was established by Levi Scott, Lindsay and Jesse Applegate and others. The wagon road extended from southern Oregon north through the Willamette Valley, and was inspired by the need for a route less treacherous than the Columbia River or the Barlow Road. With improved access to the region, settlement in Douglas County (initially known as Umpqua County) began in earnest. While some emigrants came directly to the Umpqua Valley area, many made initial claims in the Willamette Valley before selling and re-moving south into the northern portion of the county.
The low-lands of the Willamette Valley were settled first, with later settlers forced to take up claims in the foothills or adjacent smaller valleys. Small communities grew around milling operations or commercial centers which served the needs of the new settlers. Enclaves of extended families, religious, or ethnic groups often gravitated in to neighborhood groupings. “More than half of Oregon’s pioneers were accompanied by relatives or former neighbors and examples of clan migrations are numerous.”
Although not incorporated until decades later, communities such as Oakland, Wilbur, Winchester, and Drain formed as early as the 1840s, followed by Sutherlin, Yoncalla, Myrtle Creek, and Roseburg in the 1850s. The offer of “free” land and the discovery of gold led to a population surge, and Umpqua County was organized January 24, 1851. “Douglas county, named after Stephen A. Douglas, was created January 7, 1852 out of that part of Umpqua county which lay east of the Coast Range. In 1864 the remainder of Umpqua county was joined to Douglas, and Umpqua ceased to be. The county of Douglas as we know it today was established in 1915 after several debates and boundary changes.
As the available land diminished, the Donation Land Claim Act was amended several times, and was eventually replaced by the Homestead Act of 1862 that gave settlers up to 160 acres of land. Federal subsidy of railroad companies through the 1866 Oregon and California Railroad Land Grant and other initiatives continued to encourage the establishment of prosperous farming communities throughout the County.
OAKLAND AND ENGLISH SETTLEMENT AREA
The community of Oakland is located in northern Douglas County about 20 miles north of Roseburg, along old Highway 99. Prior to the arrival of the early settlers, the area was occupied by the southernmost band of the Kalapuya Indians. Diseases brought by European and American explorers in the late-eighteenth and early- nineteenth centuries, and later skirmishes between the natives and the first settlers and trappers had already greatly reduced the native population by the 1850s. In 1855, treaties were negotiated with the remaining Kalapuya villages giving the land to the United States government. The Kalapuya were forcibly moved to the Grand Ronde reservation in Western Polk and Yamhill Counties in 1856.
A few early and short-lived residences in the Oakland area appeared in the 1840s, but more permanent settlers came in the early 1850s. One of the first was Dr. Dorsey S. Baker, who established a grist mill along Calapooya Creek in 1851. Reason Reed and L.H. Crow were other early land claimants in the vicinity. Soon a hotel, stores and a school were built. “Development of the town continued until 1872 when the Oregon and California Railroad bypassed the site. Aware of the potentials of drawing merchants and investors to a location on the rail route, A.F. Brown purchased several different land parcels, including the Donation Claims of L.H. Crow and Reason Reed, to lay out a ‘new’ Oakland.” Many of the original buildings of old Oakland were relocated to the new town site, and were joined by new buildings housing depots, warehouses, livery stables and numerous other business and industrial enterprises. As a result of this strategic move, Oakland developed into an important commercial shipping center for the rich farmlands that surrounded it.
A wilderness settlement in the 1850s...Oakland grew slowly as a market and supply center for the area’s farmers and ranchers. With its relocation in 1871-1872, planned and promoted by Alonzo Brown (whose home remains), more rapid growth occurred. By the time Oakland was incorporated as a city in 1878, several passenger trains stopped there each day... With new markets open to them, farmers diversified their plantings to such cash crops as barley and hops, and sheep, cattle, turkeys and other livestock were shipped to distant regions on Oakland’s new avenue of trade.
As a railroad town Oakland became, in the words of a turn-of-the-century reporter, a ‘civilized community.’ It served the varied needs of a broad area, providing goods from furniture to fencing, and services from those of the church to those ‘of the evening.’
Oakland was the terminus of the railroad for six months, and then it was put through to Roseburg in 1872, and finally completed on to the California border in 1887. By the 1880s Oakland was a prominent community in northern Douglas County, and continued to grow economically and agriculturally. Farmers “ ‘...came from all around to Oakland to get their mail and do some trading. They nearly always had eggs and butter to trade for groceries. They didn’t need much, as they had gardens, dairy products and fruit, and they took their grain to the grist mill to have the wheat made into flour and graham...’ ” A large portion of the area’s wealth came from sheep farming, and in “...1880 Douglas county shipped a million pounds of wool...and sold 27,000 head of sheep....”
The town of Oakland was heavily damaged by a fire in 1899, an event that caused a stall in the community’s development. Agricultural production did not seem to diminish, however. By 1907 the town served as a major distribution point for agricultural produce between Portland and San Francisco. In that year 175 carloads of livestock were shipped, with turkeys being one of the area’s major crops. Other products such as grains, dried fruits, wool, venison and salmon were also shipped from Oakland. By the 1930s Oakland was known for its turkey exports, and through the 1950s lumber was a thriving industry. Ranching, particularly sheep ranching, was and continues to be a major factor in the local economy.
The English Settlement area is located several miles north and east of Oakland. It is not known when this name began to be attached to the region, but the English Settlement is named and described in Walling’s 1884 History of Southern Oregon as “...a tract of land six miles long by two wide [that] lies eight miles north of Oakland, and is called English Settlement because of the nationality of its first occupants.” Early settlers – of English extraction and others - included Sid Oldham, the Halls, Winslow Powers, and William Hanna, soon followed by the Deardorffs, James Smith, Elizabeth Johnson and others. Most arrivals to this area settled their claims between 1853 and 1854.
The prime soils and rolling hills of the English Settlement area made it excellent farm and ranch land. Agricultural pursuits in the 1850s consisted of subsistence farming for the family’s consumption, and small-scale wheat production. Stock raising soon followed as did crops (vegetable and grain) for sale at market. Sheep raising was popular and successful early on. Sheep were introduced in the Oregon Territory by the Hudson’s Bay Company; starting in the mid-1840s settlers were also importing and began successfully breeding sheep in western Oregon. By the arrival of the railroad in the 1870s the area’s agricultural production potential had been clearly established. Although the English Settlement community never grew to a town, the residents did maintain their own continuously operating school district, from the 1860s until 1934.
AGRICULTURE IN NORTHERN DOUGLAS COUNTY
While settlement agriculture in Oregon began with the arrival of Europeans and European-Americans in the 1830s, these activities were largely limited to the Willamette Valley, and were often short-lived due to the hardships of isolated living. Once the “problem” of land ownership in the Oregon Territory was resolved politically, settlement of the fledgling state began in earnest.
The richness of the alluvial soils of the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue Rivers meant that early agricultural activity was primarily focused in the Willamette Valley and the Umpqua and Rogue Valleys of southwestern Oregon. Initially engaging in subsistence farming for survival, early settlers relied heavily on hunting and the foraging of wild food for much of their early sustenance. Cereal crops such as wheat, barley, oats and corn provided grain for flour, feed for livestock and currency for the purchase of additional seed or supplies. Most harvesting in the mid-ninteenth century was done by hand labor; cutting, binding, threshing (or “thrashing”) and fanning were all often accomplished without the use of machinery. Threshing floors were created either outside by pounding a selected piece of ground smooth and hard, or under cover by laying heavy planking in a section of the barn.
Barns were among the earliest buildings to appear on the agrarian landscape. Although stock animals usually free-ranged, the use of the barn for feed, equipment storage and sometime-shelter for stock was critical to the survival and success of the emigrant families. Early barns served these multiple purposes until more specialized buildings such as equipment sheds, hay barns, chicken, sheep and dairy barns, fruit dryers and other building types were added to the farmstead. For the first years settlers were focused on establishing homes and communities on the frontier, more concerned with survival than profit.
The discovery of gold in California (and later in Oregon and regions northeast) created a market for agricultural goods (as well as lumber), and helped transform this subsistence agriculture into one of production for export. As grist- and sawmills appeared and transportation routes were established, much-needed supplies were shipped to the California mines. This in turn encouraged greater diversification in agricultural pursuits.
The Hudson’s Bay Company had brought livestock to Fort Umpqua in the 1830s, and subsequent settlers increased both sheep and cattle herds, making stock raising a dominant undertaking in Douglas County. Again, mines both to the south and north provided ready markets for sheep, wool and cattle exports. Dairying as an industry first became lucrative in the northwestern Oregon counties, but individual farms commonly had dairy cows which provided products for family consumption and local sale of milk, cheese and butter. “Horse raising was tied to the production of farm work, oxen were favored into the 1850s, with draft horses, such as Clydesdales and Percherons more useful to pull the field machinery of the later periods.” Honey bees appeared in Oregon in 1850s.
Seth Luelling was the first to successfully import grafted fruit trees to Oregon in 1847, and soon fruit was being grown in the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue River valleys and sold in both local and California markets. Prunes and apples were dominant orchard crops in the region, and by 1919 prunes were “...the largest industry in the county.” Agricultural production in northern Douglas County was abundant enough by 1860 to hold the first annual Umpqua Valley Agricultural Society meeting in Oakland that November.
Toward the end of the initial phase of settlement, the population increases and transportation improvements contributed to agricultural growth. “Connection by rail to the national marketplace established a consistent demand for Oregon products. In the counties west of the Cascades, the widely dispersed family farm was being encroached upon by commercial centers, forcing the intensification of farm lands for specialized crops.”
In 1867 Alonzo Brown purchased a Marsh Harvester... The machine was primarily a horse-drawn mower, which cut the grain stacks, leaving the grain head and short stock for hand-binding... The equipment imported by Alonzo Brown ... heralded the dawning of a new era in Douglas County farming. In the 1870’s farmers, in order to compete, rushed to purchase laborsaving devices. The advent of this machinery and the use of the steam-powered tractors in the 1870’s and the 1880’s signalled that commercial farming had commenced in Douglas County. The prospect for its success seemed bright when in 1872 the O&C Railroad [Oregon and California] reached Roseburg.
Farm machinery continued to improve, and through the first twenty years of the twentieth century horses continued to be used as the primary “engine” of the farm until they were eventually displaced by motorized equipment. As farm production increased and diversified, so did farm buildings. Barns that were initially used for multiple purposes were altered, moved or razed and replaced with buildings designed for specific functions such as carriage houses, sheep sheds, implement sheds, dairy barns and horse barns.
Northern Douglas County farms continued to produce grains and livestock for market, and fruit and vegetable production increased. Hops were a lucrative crop in Oregon between the mid-1860s and the early 1900s; the Calapooya Creek watershed was particularly productive, and hop dryers and warehouses began to appear on the landscape. In 1884, A.G. Walling wrote “As a fruit region, the Umpqua valley shares with the Rogue river region the honor of producing the finest quality and greatest abundance of Oregon fruit. Apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, apricots and grapes grow in profusion.”
As mechanized equipment became more commonplace, horse raising diminished, but cattle continued to be a common undertaking. Sheep and wool production in Douglas County preceded the establishment of the railroad, and persists today as a significant industry.
In 1865 Douglas County had 48,507 sheep and produced 109,826 pounds of wool. Three years later...17 wagon loads of wool [were shipped] to Scottsburg for export to San Francisco. Although wool growers attempted to organize in 1873, their permanent association emerged in 1931 when they began sponsoring the Douglas County Fat Lamb and Wool Show. These growers took advantage of the abundant, well-watered grass of the Umpqua region.”
After the turn of the century, turkeys raising emerged as an important industry, augmenting the already-successful sheep and cattle industries. “Between approximately 1920 and 1950, turkeys were one of the most important agricultural products in Douglas County. Oakland...hosted the Northwest Regional Turkey Show in the 1930s and 1940s.”
With only ninteen people per square mile, it is clear that northern Douglas County continues to be dominated by agricultural, range and timber lands. Recent economic success has centered around timber and winemaking.
THE BAIMBRIDGE-KANIPE FARMSTEAD
Ownership History
The Baimbridge-Kanipe Farmstead, with its arrangement of historic buildings dating from circa 1865 to circa 1935, represents a continuum of agricultural development and activity in Douglas County. Located in Township 24S Range 4W Section 18, the farm group is sited on the west side of County Highway 50, also known as Elkhead Road, in a draw along an unnamed creek.
Deardorff Ownership 1854-1859 / Occupancy 1854-c1868
The site was first occupied by Euro-Americans with the arrival of Joseph and Elizabeth Deardorff in 1854. Records indicate that Joseph came from Indiana or Iowa, and his wife Elizabeth from Illinois. The two were married in Iowa in 1840, and by the time they arrived in Oregon they had seven children, aged one through eighteen years. They settled their claim in 1854, a parcel that consisted of almost 328 acres. The claim does not appear on the General Land Office maps, but the road that would later become Elkhead Road/County Road 50 is visible and terminates at the site of this farm in 1855.
In 1859, the Deardorffs sold the claim to neighbor Winslow Phelps Powers for the sum of $1,000. However, it appears that the Deardorffs may have continued to live on the claim, as they are listed in the area in 1860 U.S. Census, where Joseph’s occupation was that of a farmer; $500 of personal property is indicated, but no real property value is listed for them. In 1865 Elizabeth died, several months after the birth of the couple’s last child. Joseph remarried to Emma Day in 1868 or 1869 in Douglas County, and by 1870 the Deardorffs had left Douglas County, and were listed in census records as living in Pleasant Hill, Lane County, Oregon. The family then moved to a ranch along Deardorff Creek in Grant County sometime around 1872.
Powers Ownership 1859-1880
Winslow Powers, who was born in 1821 in Vermont, came to Oregon in 1847, settling on a claim in the Willamette Valley. Not long after his arrival, he traveled to the California mines, and ultimately removed to the Oakland area sometime in 1853.
Deciding that he preferred farming and stock raising to mining, Powers passed on to the Umpqua Valley where he took a donation land claim... Here he erected a log house, cultivated the soil and surrounded himself with various kinds of stock... In 1853 he met an amiable young girl Miss Harriet N. [Newell] Tower who had crossed the plains with her parents in 1852 and was now located within four miles of Powers’ home.
Genealogical data indicates that he married Harriet Tower in December of 1854 in Umpqua County, and their first child was born one year later. Powers’ house is mentioned in government surveyor’s notes from 1855, and he apparently “...constructed a sawmill in the English settlement east of Oakland. He built the first frame house in the area from lumber cut at his mill.” Based on the surveyor’s description, it appears that the house mentioned is on the southern part of Powers’ original claim (prior to his purchase of the Deardorff claim).
It seems unlikely that the Powers’ ever lived on the Deardorff claim, since census and genealogical data indicates that the Deardorffs were still living in the vicinity – presumably on their claim southeast of the subject property – until the mid-1860s.
Sometime between 1871 and 1874 the Powers family moved to Wallowa County, Oregon, renting the subject farm (the old Deardorff claim) to Thomas and Emily Baimbridge. Baimbridge family documents indicate that Powers was renting the property to the Baimbridges by June of 1872, and sold it to them in 1880.
Baimbridge Tenancy c 1872-1880 / Ownership 1880-c1902
The Baimbridge family emigrated from Derbyshire, England in 1870. “George Hall, who owned a ranch east of Oakland [in English Settlement], was a relative and they first wintered in a cabin on his ranch. They then leased the Thomas place in near-by Driver Valley...” By 1872 they were renting and living on the land owned by Winslow Powers; they purchased the farm in 1880. One source states that the purchase price was “...$3,000 and 1,000 young ewe sheep...,” which suggests that the land was used for sheep ranching from at least the 1870s. The family resided there until both Thomas and Emily had passed away, in 1891 and 1896 respectively, at which time the farm (that portion including the house and outbuildings) was inherited by their youngest daughter Sarah, who was born in 1876.
Kanipe Ownership c 1902-1983
Sarah married John A. Kanipe around 1902, and together they had two daughters, Leah and Mildred. John Kanipe was born in either North or South Carolina around 1871, and was living in Tennessee in 1880 before moving to Oregon with his parents sometime between 1880 and 1900.
According to Mildred Kanipe,
About 1876 the Kanipes with their only son John [Mildred’s father], aged 5, came to Oakland, Oregon, for a new start in ranching. They raised grain on different ranches in the area and about the time John got old enough to do a man’s work they rented the Doc Hall place east of Oakland where my father [John] raised grain and Percheron horses. He would raise the colts and break teams to work and sell them.
About 1902 John Kanipe and Sarah Baimbridge were married. They lived on the original W.P. Powers claim. John Kanipe bought the adjoining farm from Mary Baimbridge [Sarah’s sister] and she lived with them. He later bought most of what had been the Baimbridge ranch. He owned a share in and helped run a threshing machine; it was powered by a J.I. Case steam engine and he used his teams of horses to pull the water wagon. He continued raising horses and grain but in later years turned mostly to sheep. John and Sarah Kanipe had two children, Leah and Mildred.
Sarah died in 1907, and John and their two young daughters continued to live on the property along with Mary Baimbridge until John’s death in 1940. Census records indicate that the family farmed the land (listed as “general farmer” in 1920, and “stock farmer” in 1930). John Kanipe was locally known for breeding and training Percheron horses for use on area farms. It is likely that the alterations to the horse barn were done around the turn of the century by John, to accommodate his horses.
Mildred, who never married, “inherited just over 290 acres of the Deardorff land claim in 1940 when her father died. Her Aunt Mary lived with Mildred until she passed away in 1955.” Augmenting her holdings by purchasing the adjacent Underwood farm, Mildred ultimately owned nearly 1,100 acres that included the Deardorff and Powers donation land claims. She was the sole owner and operator of the farm for over forty years, and continued to raise sheep and cattle, grow hay for winter feed, and keep goats, rabbits and poultry in a manner much as those before her had done. She worked the farm until poor health forced her to leave the land in 1980, and she died in 1983.
Agriculture was the primary endeavor of most of the settlers coming to Oregon in the mid-ninteenth century. On arrival, construction of shelter and subsistence farming was as much as a family could handle. After several years, production increased and marketable crops in the form of grain, fruits, livestock, poultry, wool and dairy products became the economic foundation of these rural communities. This appears to be the pattern of development on the Baimbridge-Kanipe farmstead as well. This property has always functioned as a working farm; all owners and occupants of the property are listed in various census records as farmers, from 1860 to 1930. The variety and span of age of the buildings are evidence of its continuing and varied use over its 150 year life.
CONSTRUCTION HISTORY
The sequence of construction of buildings on the Baimbridge-Kanipe farm is difficult to discern. Dating of the outbuildings is particularly difficult due to the heavy use the buildings are subject to, and the subsequent deterioration, repair and remodeling to accommodate new uses. All buildings appear on the earliest aerial photograph available for the area, taken in 1939.
It seems likely that the house, probably the oldest building in the farm group, was built either during the ownership of the Deardorffs (1854-1859) or the earlier years of the Powers’ ownership (1859-1880), perhaps as late as 1870. While this area (T24S R4W) was surveyed and documented by the General Land Office in the years 1856, 1860 and 1897, no land claims are indicated on any of these maps for the section (Sections 18 and 19) in which the Baimbrige-Kanipe farm is located. Further, no survey notes were found for claims owned by either Deardorff or Powers, although Powers’ house is mentioned as a point of reference in another survey.
Two clues suggest the existence of a house (though not necessarily the current one) here in the 1850s. First, the 1856 GLO map shows the terminus of the future Elkhead road at this farm site. Second, Joseph and Elizabeth Deardorff did submit a notification for their claim, and a certificate for the claim in their name was issued in 1866. Requirements for receiving a certificate on a claim included living on and working the land for at least four years from the time of notification. The fact that the Deardorffs did not receive a certificate until 1866 does not necessarily suggest that the farm or any part of it did not exist until that date. It seems that most certificates were not issued until the mid-1860s.
Once settlers had filed their notices of entry for ... claims, they were extremely slow to take title. The reluctance of the pioneer generation to procure a record of ownership for their lands was that once the land was patented, it was subject to taxation. As long as it was registered as a claim at the land office in Winchester or Roseburg, however, the property was protected as theirs. The only inducement to move a parcel toward patent was if the “owner” wished to subdivide or dispose of the lands. In many instances donation land claims and “preemption” lands in Douglas County did not go for patent until the original settler died.
Regardless, land ownership records and the location of the house do not support the contention that the house was built as early as 1851-52 by Powers as suggested by Kanipe family and local lore. Most arrivals to the English Settlement area settled claims in 1853-54, and Powers did not own the land until 1859. Further, it is likely that the initial residence was a log cabin, followed later with a more substantial house. The physical features of the Baimbridge-Kanipe house coupled with land records and genealogical information support a potential construction period of perhaps the late 1850s to mid-1860s, though no direct historical documentation to confirm a specific date of construction has been found. For the purposes of this document, the construction date is set at circa 1865.
The few pages of the 1872 diary/account book available from the Baimbridge family clearly suggest the existence of an established farm by that time. Payment of rent to W. Powers implies there is a house; sale of livestock, hay and grain suggest not only that the farm is producing these things but that there may also be a barn on the property. Dates extrapolated from newspapers on the walls of the house suggest that some portion of it may have been built prior to 1878. This construction – if it occurred as late as the mid-1870s - was likely either an addition (kitchen), a remodel or an interior refinishing project. This contention is supported by Leah Kanipe-Howard, Mildred Kanipe’s sister who in her personal memoirs said that her grandfather, Thomas Baimbridge, completed the addition.
Of the five outbuildings on the property, the horse barn appears to be the oldest. (See Figure 7) This transverse-plan barn contains mortise-and-tenon hand-hewn framing of a configuration that suggests an early construction date – perhaps as early as pre-1870s – and the Baimbridge diary entries 1872 do suggest the existence of a barn though the barn roof has since been altered. Hand-wrought nails and remnant hand-wrought gate hardware also support this dating. While the current roof pitch points to a later construction date – possibly as late as 1920 - a historic photograph shows the barn in the background with a lower pitch roof than the current configuration. This same photo also shows wood fencing and the Buggy Shed. (See Figure 10).
The only building for which there is a somewhat definitive construction date is the Sheep Shearing Shed. According to the recollection of John Howard, Mildred Kanipe’s nephew, the Shed was built in 1935 or 1936 by Mr. Howard’s father Romie Howard.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
According to the Cultural and Historic Resource Inventory of Douglas County, a survey initially conducted in 1981-82 and revised in 2002,
Historic resources associated with agricultural pursuits are distributed throughout most valleys in the County. The few early surviving resources such as barns and houses are located in the broad valleys that were taken by Donation Land Claimants in the late 1840’s and the first half of the 1850’s. Some early farm buildings have survived with buildings from a later period, but none have survived in the company of another from the same period.
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