Colony agricultural project breaks ground

Valley Life editor

The growth of the Valley began with farmers getting off the Alaska Railroad decades ago, and now, community members are working to preserve that history.

The Colony Historical Agricultural Project broke ground May 22 on the Alaska Colony Heritage Interpretive Center at the Rebarchek Homestead, and this summer, the working exhibit is staffed by Future Farmers of America students.

"The students will be planting and on site all summer to discuss with folks the agricultural methods of the Colonists," said Cora Moses, one of the project's main organizers. "We're even hoping to have a team of yoked oxen out there for demonstrations on plowing."

Moses said this summer marks the first step in realizing the end results of long-term project.

"Really, it's about a seven-year project," Moses said. "The first phase is to get the agricultural interpretive center established. Then, hopefully next year, we'll be able to add an audio-visual center and more outbuildings.

"Down the road we'd like to have a museum established, and maybe relocate one of the original Colony barns to the farm. But that's down the road, not right now," Moses said.

The agricultural interpretive center is designed to allow guests to walk the grounds of an original Colony farm. Eventually, guides in period costumes will lead visitors through the gardens and long the plowed fields, explaining the early methods of farming techniques used by early Valley settlers.

While the demonstrations of agricultural processes will start this summer, the center won't officially open until the Alaska State Fair.

"We'll definitely have it manned throughout the duration of the Alaska State Fair, so people can come by and see what we've got going," Moses said.

The FFA students are going to be in the fields this week, planting gardens and crops according to the original Rebarchek layout.

At the May 22 groundbreaking, the fields were plowed for the first time by the Antique Power Association and the Matanuska Antique Tractor Association.

Tractors and plows of the era were used to work the fields for the first time.