The Farm at Hodge's Dairy

EUGENE WILSON HODGES FARM HOUSE

The Hodges House, built about 1908, is the centerpiece of a large complex of agricultural buildings and structures, including four contributing buildings, five contributing structures, seven noncontributing buildings and three noncontributing structures.

Among the contributing resources is the farmland. This land includes about 120 acres of pasture, bordered by woods, to the east and south of the farmyard. Cropland stands to the west, southwest, and north, across the road, and constitutes about 65 acres. This surrounding farmland has survived in unusually pristine condition.

It is said that several tenant dwellings once stood north across the road from the Hodges House, and that a frame smokehouse originally stood behind the residence, beside the wellhouse. No evidence of these buildings survives above ground, and no archaeological study has been undertaken.

The approximately 187-acre tract of farmland comprising the Hodges Farm continues to display the appearance, and some of the uses, which characterized it during the period of significance. Although cotton, dominant crop on the Hodges Farm in the early 20th century, is no longer raised, the landscape's rolling terrain of cropland, pasture, and woods, reveals the essential character of the Piedmont farmsteads which once dominated Mecklenburg County. The land remains part of a large working farm where crops and livestock are raised on its soil. The farmyard, the centerpiece of the tract, is shaded by mature oaks. Although this farm is situated in one of the more agrarian parts of the county, new residential developments now mark the former farmland to the northeast, physical reminders of the fragility of this rural landscape.

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Last modified: May 25, 2007