knoxville news
knoxville news knoxville advertising entertainment knoxville obituaries rss linkedin twitter facebook contact smoky mountains knoxville legal notices knoxville classifieds travel knoxville sports business lifestyle knoxville daily sun
 

Escaping DFW to a Texas heritage farm and life in another century
By Tom Adkinson
July 9, 2021

grapevine texas farmhosue
Westward moving settlers built this farmhouse in 1869 on land that a century later is adjacent to DFW International Airport; image by Tom Adkinson


GRAPEVINE, Texas – If you couldn’t see or hear the frequent takeoffs and landings of jet airplanes at DFW International Airport, it would be even easier to mentally transport yourself to the rural life of North Texas in the late 1800s on a five-acre parcel of land in Grapevine.

The time-transporting location is Nash Farm, one of the last agrarian sites in the region from the 19th century. It’s not even four miles from the closest DFW departure lounge.

grapevine texas gobblers
Two combative Nash Farm turkeys are flummoxed by a fence that keeps them apart; image by Tom Adkinson

“It’s crazy that you can go from the hubbub of the airport to the old life on the farm, but it’s true,” said Cody Jolliff, manager of heritage museums and education programs at Nash Farms.

You are welcome to stroll through the farm, pluck a peach in a shady fruit orchard, watch the aggressive antics of two combative turkeys that don’t understand the concept of the fence that separates them, admire the beauty of little lambs, marvel at a hog’s girth or sit a spell on a farmhouse porch.

grapevine texas biscuits
Nash Farm staffers display a basket a fresh biscuits for a special group tour meal; image by Tom Adkinson


In many ways, today’s Nash Farm is just like it was when Thomas Jefferson Nash, his wife and their first three children left Kentucky to settle here in the 1850s.

They arrived in then-tiny Dallas in 1854 and within months moved a few miles northwest to the Grapevine vicinity. Nash’s brother William arrived soon thereafter, and by 1859, they had a 450-acre farm. The frame farmhouse you see today was built in 1869.

Thomas Nash and his wife gave part of their land for the right of way for the Cotton Belt Railroad, which spurred the area’s economic development. Their farm remained in family hands until the 1920s and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The farm – now a project of the city of Grapevine and the Grapevine Heritage Foundation – very much is a working farm. Five acres are a lot to handle when your goal is preserving the agrarian traditions of times gone by. There are crops to sow, gardens to cultivate, eggs to collect and livestock to tend.

nash farm lamb
A Gulf Coast Native Sheep lamb parades in front of the farm’s distinctive red barn. Image by Nash Farm.
nash farm peach picker
The peach orchard produces fruit for a variety of farm recipes, according to Nash Farm staffer Cody Jolliff. Image by Tom Adkinson.


Sheep are probably the most photographed of Nash Farm livestock, in part because spring lambs are so cute. The flock is Gulf Coast Native Sheep, a heritage breed derived from Spanish sheep that are adept at life in the Gulf Coast region.

Seeing a good hook, farm operators capitalize on the sheep by inviting people to support the flock. You can be a shepherd for $250, or you can name a lamb for $100. If that’s too much, you can chip in $20 for a sack of grain or $10 for a bale of hay and feel part of the farm family.

Twice a year, there’s a true farm-to-fork dinner, and Jolliff says what’s served comes as much as possible directly from Nash Farm.

The circle of life means the combative turkeys and the wallowing hog end up on the dinner table, along with potatoes, beets, onions and other vegetables. Herbs from the herb garden add extra flavors, and fruit from the orchard is the heart of dessert.

A visit to Nash Farm is surprisingly easy for 21st century travelers. Grapevine is only a 10-minute Trinity Metro TEXRail train ride from DFW, meaning that it’s entirely logical to escape the airport if you have a long layover between flights. From Grapevine’s Main Street Station, it’s only a half-mile walk to Nash Farm and another century.


Trip Planning Resources: NashFarm.org, GrapevineTexasUSA.com and RideTrinityMetro.org

(Travel writer Tom Adkinson, author of “100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die,” is a Marco Polo member of SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers.)













knoxville daily sun

Knoxville Daily Sun
2021 Image Builders
User Agreement | Privacy Policy