Ardenwood Historic Farm

Historic house in California, United States

Ardenwood Historic Farm is a Regional Historic Landmark in Fremont, California. It is managed by the East Bay Regional Park District. The Ardenwood Historic Farm consists of the Ardenwood Station, the former Ohlone village and burial site, a blacksmith shop, an area with farm animals, Patterson House, and a gazebo. The Ardenwood Farm today is a working farm, producing grain and vegetables.

Officially opened to the public on July 28, 1985, the entire park includes a farm, a large forest and a mansion now called the Patterson House. He came to Alameda County in 1851, after not having success in mining.

A feature of the park is the Railroad Museum at Ardenwood which operates a 3 feet narrow gauge railway, a recreation of a historic local branch of the South Pacific Coast Railroad. The museum has a collection of narrow gauge railroad cars and other artifacts of 19th century railroading. The museum is run by the Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources.

The local area was in agricultural usage beginning sometime in the 1850s. The Ardenwood Farm locale was characterized first for its use as grazing land and dairy production, and gradually became increasingly dedicated to wheat and vegetable production. At the time of Patterson's death in 1895, the ranch was 3,000 acres, one of the largest in the area. that the area immediately to the south was used for agricultural purposes from at least 1960 until some time in the late 1970s cultivated with a grain crop. No discrete rows are visible in the aerial photographs of that time. The Alameda family was a prominent occupant in the area for much of the period of agricultural land use. Mel Alameda of The Alameda Company confirmed to Earth Metrics that while cauliflower has been the dominant historic crop for the area, hay and grazing were the primary use later and until the late 1970s. Based on the lack of visible rows on the aerial photos, it is most probable that the area to the south was used for hay production rather than cauliflower.

The park has hosted many events, a Celtic festival, an Independence Day celebration, the Washington Township Railroad Fair on Labor Day, a Renaissance Faire in September, The Harvest Festival, annual Rail Fair, and pumpkin patch in October, a Zydeco concert, and many Halloween celebrations, complete with a haunted railroad. Among other crops, in the fall the farm harvests a large pumpkin patch.