“Wait…Why are there two houses at The Farm at Prophetstown?”
Agriculture in the 1920s was a community affair. Today, it’s common to see a huge combine harvesting crops in an Indiana field, but step back one hundred years ago, and it took around twenty-five people to perform the same tasks. In 1920s Indiana, wheat and corn were the staple crops.
credit: Wisconsin Historical Society
In the 20s, wheat had to be cut in the fields, some with hand-held scythes and some with a horse-drawn reaper. Private companies would go from farm to farm with a threshing machine and steam engine to finish the threshing process, where the wheat grain is removed from the stalk and chaff. Several men and women were needed to run wagons back and forth, pitch bundles, store up grain, and bale straw…and a few needed to feed them all. Enter the tenant farmer.
Tenant farmers worked for an established farmer to save up funds so they could one day own and operate their own farms. Often through a combination of labor, produce, and household goods, tenant farmers were provided a place to stay. Some were farmers with families of their own, some were family members and friends, and some came from the East as individual young men looking for a better way of life, but all labored hard on the Hoosier farm to provide food for the ever-growing population.
The Tenant House at The Farm, representing a farmhand’s humble dwelling, is not inferior to the larger Gibson House beside it. The kitchen is equipped with a gas stove, a modern luxury in 1920s life that fewer than one-third of rural inhabitants enjoyed. A cheerful reed/pump organ and a phonograph bring music to the quaint abode. And the love of families past can still be experienced as the smell of old wallpaper and wood-hewn floors still waft about from room to room.
While The Farm at Prophetstown is a representation of 1920s farm life in the Hoosier Heartland, with none of the buildings being original to the property, the Tenant House sits very close to its original location. Built by Charles and Mary Strubel in 1921, it was originally housed on 9th street in Lafayette before being donated by the city in the 2000s.
Honoring the farmers who came before us, we’re so blessed to have this relic of the 1920s intact for our visitors at The Farm at Prophetstown. Come experience life through a 1920s tenant farmer today! We’re open seven days a week.