[470] STATEWIDE PROGRAM RECOGNIZES CROCKETT COUNTY FARM’S CONTRIBUTIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 18, 2009
CONTACT: Caneta Hankins, 615-898-2947

STATEWIDE PROGRAM RECOGNIZES CROCKETT COUNTY FARM’S CONTRIBUTIONS
Griggs Farms LLC Brings County’s Tennessee Century Farms Total to 20

(MURFREESBORO, Tenn.)—The Griggs Farms LLC in Crockett County has been designated as a Tennessee Century Farm, reports Caneta S. Hankins, director of the Century Farms program at the Center for Historic Preservation, which is located on the MTSU campus.
The Griggs Farms LLC dates to 1884 when Robert Buchanan Griggs Jr. acquired 750 acres in the Mason Grove community, which was established in the 1820s by the Mason family. Prior to the railroad being built in Gadsden in the 1880s, Mason Grove was a thriving community with a boarding school known as Mason’s Grove Masonic Academy, a hotel, a post office, several churches and other businesses.
Robert married Mary Susan Cox, and they had nine children. Their names were Jim, Sophia, Winnie, Susie, Willis Wayne, Nannie, Edna, Emmet and Ernest. The family raised cattle, horses, cotton and hay. According to the family, the first cotton gin in the community was owned by Lemuel E. Humphreys and located between Gadsden and Humboldt off what is currently Highway 79. It was later sold to Robert Buchanan Griggs in 1882 and was converted from horsepower to windmill power and continuously updated through the years until it ceased operation in 1995.
After Robert passed away, the original 750 acres was split among his children into 14 different tracts. Over the years, several tracts were bought and sold between the family members. The family remembers that a generator was located behind the Robert Buchanan Griggs house that supplied power to the Mason Grove community. During this time, the farms mainly produced cotton, hay, cattle and horses.
In 1953, Willis Wayne Griggs died and his widow, Addie May Griggs, inherited the property. Willis and Addie had two children, James Wayne and Mary Jane. After his father’s death, James, who served in World War II, operated and managed the farmland, the store and cotton gin. In the early 1960s, James started a liquid fertilizer and chemical business on the farm. James and his wife, Margaret Collinsworth, had two children, Robert Wayne and James Terrance. Both James and Robert served as members of the National Cotton Board and regularly attended their meetings.
During the 1970s and 1980s, James acquired more of the tracts of the original farmland. In the 1980s, the fertilizer and chemical business ceased operations, and in 1995, the cotton gin closed.
Today, the farm is owned by Robert Matthew Griggs, the great-great-grandson of the founder, and his mother, Joanna Vanderpool Griggs, and his sister, Jocelyn Leah Griggs Bundy. In 2002, the farm diversified its products with corn, hybrid Bermuda grass hay, grain sorghum, soybeans and cotton.
Currently, the land is worked by Robert, who lives on the farm in a 1900 dwelling with wife Kelley Marie Lavin Griggs and their children, Paige Marie, Nathaniel Marshall and Carter Wayne. Robert also rents an additional 1,200 acres in Crockett and Madison counties. The family reports that the historic farmhouses, cotton gin, office and shop are intact on the property.
Hankins said the Griggs Farms LLC is the 20th Tennessee Century Farm to be certified in Crockett County.

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About the Century Farms Program

The Century Farm Program recognizes the contributions of Tennessee residents who have continuously owned, and kept in production, family land for at least 100 years. Since 1984, the CHP at MTSU has been a leader in the important work of documenting Tennessee’s
agricultural heritage and history through the Tennessee Century Farm Program, and continues to administer this program.
The Tennessee Department of Agriculture began the Tennessee Century Farm Program in 1976 as part of the nation’s bicentennial. Today, the TDA provides a
metal outdoor sign, noting either 100, 150 or 200 years of “continuous agricultural production” to Century Farm families.
To be considered for eligibility, a farm must be owned by the same family for at least 100 years; must produce $1,000 revenue annually; must have at least 10 acres of the original farm; and one owner must be a resident of Tennessee.
“The Century Farmers represent all the farm families of Tennessee,” Hankins said, “and their contributions to the economy, and to the social, cultural and agrarian vitality of the state, both past and present, is immeasurable. Each farm is a Tennessee treasure.”
For more information about the Century Farms Program, please visit its Web site at http://histpres.mtsu.edu/histpres. The Center for Historic Preservation also may be contacted via mail at Box 80, MTSU, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 37132, or by telephone at 615-898-2947.


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ATTENTION, MEDIA: To interview the farm’s owners or request a jpeg of the farm, please contact the CHP directly at 615-898-2947.