Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum

Goal: $5,000.00

Specific Need

This year, we’re focusing on the long-term future of the Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum by raising funds for our endowment. By investing in our endowment, you’re ensuring that we can continue preserving Loudoun’s rich agricultural heritage for generations to come. Your support will help us maintain and create new exhibits, expand educational programs, and sustain the museum’s mission well into the future.

Our goals for the endowment include:

Restoration & Acquisition – For care of general collections (including archives), the acquisition of new artifacts, and acquisition of storage or exhibit space, including capital infrastructure and the digitzation of archives for public access.
Education – For exhibit and program development, including traveling exhibits and public educational events.
Internship – For a paid research or professsional development project.

Mission

The Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving, promoting, and bringing to life the rich agricultural history of Loudoun County and educating people about farming today. We educate visitors about farming past and present through hands-on exhibits, school and Scout programs, living history experiences, and beloved annual events.

Profile

The Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum is located in Claude Moore Park in eastern Loudoun County. We are surrounded by open space, nature trails, two ponds, and historic buildings. The Museum’s collection and archives contain a variety of materials related to farming and farm life, many of them rare, including an original Yardley Taylor map of Loudoun County; the contents, ledgers, and invoices from the Waxpool General Store; and the papers of James Smith. The Workhorse Museum, open to the public during special events, houses a unique collection of equine agricultural materials. We fulfill our mission and serve the community in a variety of ways as we have been doing for over 20 years.

Interactive Exhibits

Visitors of all ages experience history through interactive exhibits like:

The Waxpool General Store – Shop like it’s the early 1900s in the actual Waxpool store reconstucted in the museum!!
Grandma’s Kitchen – Step into a pre-electric farm kitchen from the past.
One-Room Schoolhouse – Sit in period desks and use chalk to complete sample lessons from McGuffey readers.
Recirculating Milking Cow – Experience hands-on dairy farming by “milking” our lifelike cow and gather plastic eggs from the chicken coop.
Pick-Your-Own Farm Area – Discover where food comes from by picking your own plastic fruits and vegetables.
Living History Blacksmith Forge – Watch history come to life with live blacksmithing demonstrations! You may even be chosen to swing a mallet.

Permanent and Rotating Exhibits

The Farm Museum tells the story of Loudoun’s agricultural past through permanent, three-dimensional exhibits covering the county’s 18^th century farming practices, tenant farming, slavery, wheat production, bee keeping, apple orchards, farm equipment, and dairy farming.

Our traveling exhibitions extend the museum’s reach into the community. Our newest traveling exhibit on Loudoun's First Farmers' has made its rounds in Loudoun county and is currently at the Thomas Balch Library.

School Programs

We offer engaging programs for schools (public, private, and homeschool) that align with Virginia Standards of Learning, including:

School Field trips on farming, historic trades, and agriculture.
Station programs that serve an entire grade level at the same time and are interdisciplinary and customized to each group
Historic Encounters Days with costumed interpreters demonstrating blacksmithing, weaving, and more

Annual Events and Community Programs

Each year the Museum holds family-friendly outdoor festivals that bring farming to life.

Apple Festival – Enjoy heirloom apple tastings, cider pressing, and historic games.
Farmyard Fun – Meet and learn about farm animals.
Truck or Treat – A fun, family-friendly event where kids can explore farm equipment, trucks, and tractors while trick-or-treating in costume.
Community Gardening – Rent a garden bed and grow your own food.
Talks & Seminars – We host and conduct talks and seminars covering a variety of topics, from Loudoun’s farming history, to the American Revolution, and gardening techniques.