Johnson County property honored as Heritage Farm

IOWA CITY - Johnson County is receiving an honor usually reserved for longtime farming families.

At a ceremony at the Iowa State Fair on Tuesday, the Johnson County Poor Farm will be recognized as a Heritage Farm, meaning it has had the same owner for at least 150 years.

It's the ownership part that makes the situation unique: Out of more than 500 farms that have been recognized, officials with the program are not aware of another government-owned property that has been declared a Heritage Farm.

Dustin Vande Hoef, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, said only one government property is believed to be among the 17,000 Century Farms that have had the same ownership for 100 years. That property is in Dallas County, said Vande Hoef, whose agency oversees the program with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.

“I think it's pretty neat because I think the recognition talks about the care and the pride in the farm, and I think that's definitely reflected in the county,” said Johnson County Supervisor Sally Stutsman, whose family farms.

The Poor Farm is located west of Iowa City off Melrose Avenue, just west of Highway 218.

The county has owned the property since 1855. It originally had 160 acres and now has 192, of which 133 acres are still farmed for corn and soybeans, said Andy Johnson, executive assistant to the county's Board of Supervisors. The property also includes land that is home to the county's joint emergency communications center and Chatham Oaks, a residential facility for people with mental illness.

The Poor Farm initially had two functions, said Meagan McCollum, education and outreach coordinator for the Johnson County Historical Society.

One was as a residential facility for people living in poverty who would work the land in return for food and shelter on a temporary basis, she said.

There also was an asylum for the mentally ill, who were expected to work to the best of their abilities. The asylum building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The historical society, on its website, describes the treatment of the poor and mentally ill as “crude by modern standards.”

It's that darker history that had Rod Sullivan, chairman of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors, calling the Heritage Farm designation “kind of a mixed bag.”

“The whole idea of a poor farm is pretty far removed from the way we hope to be treating our citizens today,” he said.

But with two Century Farms in his family, Sullivan said it is a nice honor.

The county rents out the land for farming. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, the county received $36,000 in rent and spent $5,844 on the property, mostly in management fees, said Rich Claiborne, the county's budget coordinator.

The Poor Farm's location on the edge of Iowa City and near a highway interchange has led to a lot of interest from developers. The county has allowed some development for public purposes, with the construction of the joint emergency communications center and an Iowa National Guard armory in recent years.

Sullivan said he believes a majority of the current supervisors want to maintain the history of the farm, but he also said it wouldn't surprise him if more of the property eventually is developed.

“But we're not there yet,” he said. “I don't think anybody is going to have to worry about that for a long time.”