[204] Lauderdale County Farm Joins State's Century Farms Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Nov. 20, 2009
CONTACT: Caneta Hankins, 615-898-2947

LAUDERDALE COUNTY FARM JOINS STATE’S CENTURY FARMS PROGRAM
Pecan Hill Farm Becomes County’s Newest Tennessee Century Farm

(MURFREESBORO)—The Pecan Hill Farm in Lauderdale 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.
Nancy Price and son James Y. Price came to Tennessee from Alabama in the 1870s. James purchased his first acreage in 1892, and then in 1901, he bought the land now known as Pecan Hill Farm. Together, the properties totaled around 170 acres. He and his wife, Martha Ballard Price, had four children, Walter Y., Emma, Jimmie, and Eugene. They raised cotton, corn, hay, cattle, hogs and poultry.
When James died in 1936, his will was contested because he had excluded some of his children. In 1937, the land was divided among all the children. While his siblings sold their shares, Eugene kept his 50 acres and also bought back other tracts of the farm until he held 78 acres of the original farm. He and his wife, Ollie Stanley Price, had two children, Thomas Leo and Floyd A.
Thomas and his wife, Monese Oline Ellington Price, were the next generation to own the farm and, together with their children, Jimmy R. and Verlinda Gayle, they raised cotton, corn, hay, soybeans, cattle and chickens.
In 1993, the farm was transferred to Jimmy R. Price, the great-grandson of the founding couple. James and his wife, Sheila Dover Price and daughter Megan Suzanne, live on the family farm and raise cotton, corn, hay, soybeans, sunflowers, and cattle. The farmhouse, with a date of August 1888 written in the mortar of the cellar, still stands today.

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.

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“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 official Century Farm sign that is given to farm owners, please contact the CHP directly at 615-898-2947.





With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.