The Carroll County Farm Museum continues to endear itself, even as the county?s population increases and farmland decreases.
“For the [resurgence] of young families [who have moved to the county], it?s quite an experience for them to come and see what Carroll County was,” said administrator Dottie Freeman, a Carroll County native and museum curator and tour guide for 20 years.
“Many of the people who live in the developments don?t have any clue that this was once a rural heritage community.”
The museum, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, started in a county with 219,000 acres of farmland, compared with 147,000 acres in 2002, according to the Census of Agriculture provided by the county Department of Economic Development.
Despite residential growth, agriculture is the county?s paramount industry, with dairy farming bringing in $21 million in sales from the county?s 85 dairy farms in 2002, said Gabe Zepp, agricultural marketing specialist with the economic development department.
Horticulture, such as flowers, brought in $12 million and grain production, including corn, wheat and barley, brought in $10 million.
Founded by former county director of planning George Grier in 1966, the farm museum in Westminster began as a collection of fewer than than 200 Victorian farm tools and an original showcase of push plows and steam-engine tractors, all donated by county farmers.
The museum has blossomed into a 140-acre museum with more than 10,000 agricultural artifacts.
To commemorate the anniversary, museum workers are painting the white walls of the 150-year-old farmhouse ? the facility?s main building, formerly the Almshouse, a shelter for the poor ? pink and green, colors in vogue in the 19th century.
