Brown/Bender Farm: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program. 2013. Brown/Bender Farm: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 500964. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. NPS Midwest Regional Office, Omaha, Nebraska / CRIS-CL Database
Inventory Unit Description: The Jim Brown/Earva Bender (Brown/Bender) Farm is a historic farmstead situated along the eastern edge of the Cuyahoga River valley, roughly eight miles northwest of present-day central Akron, Ohio. The property’s identified cultural landscape consists of approximately 35 acres, whose most prominent features are a central collection of farm buildings: a farmhouse, barn, greenhouse frame ruin, and modern garage, all surrounded by a yard, trees, and associated small-scale features. Akron Peninsula Road separates this domestic cluster from the majority of the farm’s agricultural fields, which follow the eastern side of the Cuyahoga River. A remnant vineyard and orchard is located east of the house below the upper slope of the valley wall, and it contains fruit trees and a row of grapevines. While the cultural landscape under consideration in this CLI record does not include the extent of land that the farm’s original owner, Jim Brown, acquired for agriculture, it includes those areas that remain in cultivation or otherwise convey the agricultural use of the Cuyahoga Valley during the landscape’s period of significance, 1840 to 1930. The property has been listed as locally significant to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A and Criterion C, for its association with the agricultural development of the region, for its early owner’s contributions to the folklore of the Cuyahoga Valley, and for its distinguished rural architecture.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program
- Date of Issue
- 2013-08-15
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- CUVA , MWR
- Keywords
- agricultural fields, agriculture, architecture, barn, Earva Bender Farm, farm, farmhouse, grave marker, Greek Revival, greenhouse, historic vernacular landscape, Jim Brown Farm, orchard, small-scale commercial agriculture, subsistence agriculture