[201] Cheatham County Farm Join Ranks of State's Century Farms Program

For Release: Dec. 13, 2012

Contact:  Caneta Hankins, Center for Historic Preservation, 615-898-2947

Hooper Homestead Farm Recognized for Agricultural Contributions

MURFREESBORO — Hooper Homestead Farm in Cheatham 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 at MTSU.

The Century Farms Program recognizes the contributions of Tennessee residents who have owned and kept family land in continuous agricultural production for at least 100 years. 

The Hooper Homestead Farm, located southeast of Ashland City, was founded by Daniel M. Hooper. His father had worked land in the area since 1858, but it was not until Daniel and his wife, Jemima, began working their 194 acres in 1880 that the farm’s origin can be dated. Jemima and Daniel had two children – Charles Marion and Starks – and grew corn, hay and miscellaneous crops while also raising cattle. Jemima inherited the farm in 1910 when Daniel died. 

Three years later, in 1913, Jemima deeded the farm to her granddaughter, Leonta Hooper Crouch and her husband, McKinley Crouch. The Crouches had eight children and operated a small grocery store and gasoline station for about 30 years beginning in the 1920s. In addition to their commercial endeavors, the family added hogs, a fruit orchard and truck vegetables to the agricultural output of their farm.  

The fourth owners were the eight Crouch children, which were the founder’s great-great grandchildren: Doris McQueen, Dorothy Patton, June Nixon, Vivian Brake, Janie Foutch, William Crouch, Leonard Crouch and Eugene Crouch. Leonata Hooper Crouch deeded them the land in 1925.

In 1984, June Crouch Nixon and her husband Earl B. Nixon, purchased portions of the farm from her siblings. Today, the Nixons grow hay, various crops and timber and keep poultry for their eggs. They also are beekeepers. The Nixons live on the farm, which consists of 65 acres of the founder’s original farm, in a house built in the early 1940s and remodeled in the early 1990s. June and Earl also maintain an 1850s log home that was the Hooper’s dwelling.

Since 1984, the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU has been a leader in the important work of documenting Tennessee’s agricultural heritage and history through the Tennessee Century Farms Program.

For more information about the Century Farms Program, please visit www.tncenturyfarms.org. The Center for Historic Preservation also may be contacted at Box 80, MTSU, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 37132 or 615-898-2947.

• ATTENTION, MEDIA: To interview the farm’s owner or request jpegs of the farm for editorial use, please contact the CHP at 615-898-2947.

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