Penderlea Homestead

Created in 1934, Penderlea Homestead Farms was the first of over 150 homestead projects developed in 36 states under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. This Great Depression plan was to provide bankrupt farm owners, tenant farmers, and unemployed ex-farmers a means to make a living and to provide self-sufficient rural communities while easing the burden of over-crowded cities.

To do this, they would build a community consisting of family farms; a school complex complete with library, cafeteria & teacherage; a vegetable grading shed, potato storage house, cannery, grist and feed mills, general store, social building, furniture factory, a hosiery mill, church and other buildings. All around a cooperative truck farm with a central marketing plant.

The Penderlea Homestead Museum now offers a glimpse of daily life in 1930s.

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