DUDLEY FARM HISTORIC STATE PARK
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this park demonstrates the evolution of Florida farming from the 1850s to the mid-1940s-through three generations of the Dudley family. An authentic working farm, the homestead consists of eighteen buildings, including the family farmhouse with original furnishings, an 1880s kitchen outbuilding, a general store and post office, and a functional cane syrup complex. Park staff in period clothing perform daily chores, raising crops, and tending to livestock. The farm features seasonal cane grindings, corn shuckings, and heritage varieties of livestock and plants. Deer, wild turkeys, gopher tortoises, and bluebirds are still seen in the fields. The park has a visitor center, picnic area, and nature trail. Self-guided tours are available Wednesday through Sunday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Group tours can be reserved one month in advance. Smoking and pets are not allowed at the farmstead. Located seven miles west of I-75 on State Road 26 between Newberry and Gainesville.
Bird-Watching
Bring your binoculars & enjoy the bluebirds at the Visitor Center. Hawks & other birds may be seen at the farmstead
As you step back in time from the Dudley Farm Visitor Center, you follow the old road to Gainesville. To the north, are open pasture and croplands, but before the Dudley family settled here from South Carolina, this land supported longleaf pine and wiregrass. These pine trees supplied the lumber for the farm?s 18 buildings and provided the posts and rails for fences. Across the field is the 100 year old rail fence that surrounded the original log home site of Phillip Benjamin Harvey Dudley (P.B.H., Sr.). He established Dudley Farm before the Civil War.
His son, P.B.H. Dudley, Jr. developed the 1880s farm that can be seen today. Spanning one hundred and fifty years, three generations of the Dudley family lived and worked this piece of land which became a significant crossroads community by the 1880s. Dudley Farm represents the evolution of Florida farming from the 1850s to the mid 20th century.