Carter Historic Farm

06/19/2026

It's feeling like SUMMER! 🌞 The baby lambs, pigs and sheep are all outside and enjoying the beautiful weather at Carter Historic Farm at the Wood County Park District!

🌽For guided tours, visit the farm from 1-4pm Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays- but you can visit Carter Farm like any of our parks 8am to sunset everyday!

🐑 We can't wait for you to visit! We kindly ask you to please refrain from feeding and petting the livestock as well as opening and entering any enclosures.

Learn more about places like Carter Farm and what Wood County Parks have to offer at wcparks.org/parks

06/17/2026

What is it Wednesday!

Comment down below if you know what this is! 🤨

Next week we will share what it is, and more fun information about these items.

06/11/2026

✨PARTNER SPOTLIGHT✨ Last week, Chase Fleece, from the Wood County Park District (Carter Historic Farm) gave the sixth instalment of the 2026 Great Depression Lecture Series. If you missed the program, we will have it on the Wood County Museum's YouTube page in a few weeks.

Our next Great Depression Lecture Series event will be on July 1st at 6PM. Come hear about "The New Deal Challenged: National Political Dissent in a Changing Nation"

These photos are from the fourth installment in the Great Depression Lecture Series, an America 250 program. This is a Wood County Park District lead event, in partnership with the Wood County Museum.

This event series is FREE to the public!

06/10/2026

Last week’s photo was of a niddy-noddy!

This “I” shaped tool is used to make skeins from yarn by repeatedly wrapping the yarn around the four points of the two crossbars. When you’re done, slide it off the four corners and shape the skein.

Larger niddy-noddies can be a yard or two long. Making skeins on this is a good way to measure your total yardage. The niddy-noddy tool, though not always called this, has been around since the middle ages.

There’s even a painting from Leonardo’s studio, titled Madonna of the Yarnwinder, that features baby Jesus holding one! The niddy-noddy would have been a great tool to have in the depression era, especially if you were selling your handspun yarn.

05/28/2026

Congratulations to Chase Fleece, we look forward to your continued time here on the Carter Historic Farm!

The Wood County Park District is pleased to announce that Chase Fleece has been named Carter Historic Farm Coordinator. The Historic Farm Coordinator oversees all activities at Carter Historic Farm including farming operations, programming and events, animal care, and overall maintenance of the site. Park District Executive Director Chris Smalley stated, “Chase has been with the Park District in a few roles at Carter Historic Park.” “He has exceptional depth of knowledge and much practical, hands-on agriculture experience” he added. “We are looking forward to good, innovative activities under Chase’s leadership.”

Chase graduated with a Master of Arts degree from Bowling Green State University in May 2025, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in history and a minor in political science, also from BGSU. Chase previously served Carter Historic Farm as the Historic Farm Intern and most recently as the Historic Agricultural Specialist. Over the past few months, Chase has been a presenter for The Great Depression Lecture Series as a part of Wood County’s America 250 celebration.

For addition information, please contact Chris Smalley, Executive Director

05/27/2026

Last week’s items were two hand-crank ice cream makers — one “Free-Zee-Zee” and one “White Mountain Freezer”!

The first ice cream maker was patented in 1843 by Nancy Johnson in New York. She called it an “Artificial Freezer”. In 1885, Londoner Agnes Marshall advertised the Marshall Patent Freezer in one of her cookbooks.

The ad boasted that her machine could freeze ice cream in just 3-5 minutes. Our Free-Zee-Zee was likely produced between the late 19th and early 20th century, while our White Mountain Freezer was likely produced between the start of the company in 1872 and the fire that destroyed their factory in 1930.

These machines work by putting your mixture into a cylinder that sits in the middle of the barrel and filling the surrounding area with ice and salt. The salt lowers the freezing point while the spinning makes the batch smooth by preventing large chunks of ice crystals forming in your ice cream. Yum! 🍦

05/20/2026

What is it Wednesday!

Comment down below if you know what this is!

Next week we will share what it is, and more fun information about these items.

05/13/2026

The answer to last week’s post is… an agitator! (also called a posser, washing bat, washing dolly, stomper, or laundry ponch or punch).

When doing laundry by hand, using a tool to press and stir the clothes in soap and water can be easier than using your hands alone. That’s where an agitator comes in. They can mix laundry without having to bend over, and without scrubbing on a washboard unless necessary.

They typically are made up of a pole (sometimes with a handlebar on top) and either wooden pegs, or a coney, plungerlike base on the bottom. While agitators were in peak use during the Victorian era, they were still used afterwards, especially by the elderly population who would have grown up with them. In the early to mid-20th century most laundry was done by wives and mothers who would have had a weekly wash day for this task that could take hours, especially if washing linens.

In larger cities there were early laundromats, called “wet washes” or “washaterias”, but these businesses suffered during the depression. The service price in the 1930s averaged 5¢ per pound of laundry washed compared to a 7¢ per pound average in 1916. Even with these lower prices, the convenience of someone else doing your laundry was not worth the pennies that could be saved to do things the old-fashioned way.

05/06/2026

America 250 Great Depression Lecture looks at 1930s labor movement. https://bgindependentmedia.org/america-250-great-depression-lecture-looks-at-1930s-labor-movement/