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Covering Dallas, Monmouth, Independence, Falls City and surrounding areas since 1868
Helen Cherry's family has owned its northeast Polk County farm since 1909.
POLK COUNTY -- Helen Cherry, a 91-year-old Lincoln resident, has lived on the same farm almost all her life.
With the exception of a few years in the 1940s when she was teaching in Lexington in rural Eastern Oregon, Cherry has stayed close to the land she grew up on along the Willamette River just north of the formerly thriving Lincoln Port.
Purchased by her grandfather Henry J. Neiger, a Swiss dairy farmer, in 1909, the farm has been home to four generations of Cherry's family.
At the Oregon State Fair on Sept. 4 that legacy will be honored with the farm's designation as a Century Farm.
The Cherry family joins the Werth family as Polk County's 2010 Century Farm inductees.
Cherry is humble about the recognition, but her son, David Cherry, is proud for his family.
"I think it's a good recognition of what my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have done here," he said. "I appreciate that."
Neiger originally purchased 360 acres for $16,000. More than half of the property was sold in later years.
The 156 acres Cherry lives on near the river was a hop farm when her grandfather bought it. The upper portion was a dairy. Soon the hops were replaced with feed crops for the dairy cows and pasture land. The dairy was passed to Helen's father, Henry Neiger Jr., and eventually to Helen and her husband, Harold "Marvin" Cherry.
They closed the dairy in 1973 and focused instead on raising crops for a local cannery until the 1980s.
Pieces of the farm are now rented out to a grass seed grower, but a flock of sheep that Helen started with a single lamb in 1927 still exists on the property.
Cherry and her son believe the farm will stay in the family, eventually belonging to Helen's grandsons, but they aren't sure what will grow or be raised on it.
"We will see how that works out," David Cherry said. "They will be living here at least."
The Werth farm, 115 acres of which qualify for Century Farm status, sits just west of Valley Junction off Highway 18 in northwest Polk County.
The land is owned by members of the Werth family, with Dennis, his wife, and his parents still living on the property.
Three generations of Werths have grown up on the farm, first acquired by Dennis' German immigrant great-grandfather in 1909, Dennis said.
"He came to Oregon in 1902 to Newberg, but was looking for more property to settle on for his 14 kids," he said.
There are a scattering of buildings on the site that date back as far as 1920. Dennis' grandparents' home, for example, was built in 1921. But anything before that has long since been torn down and recycled," Dennis Werth said.
"Nobody built grandiose structures and landmarks," he said. "It was simply a struggle to survive."
The Werth land had traditionally been used for grains and livestock. In the mid-1980s, the family discontinued their small dairy, while most of the land is now in smaller-scale hay and pasture farming.
Because of the geography, nestled snuggly in the Coast Range, it's been a challenge to farm, said Dennis Werth, a farmer who later in life earned an anthropology degree.
"It's a very narrow corridor we have here that goes to the coast and is used by all of Portland and Salem as they head to the beach," he said.
As such, some of the less desirable agricultural land has been converted back into forest.
Dennis said he was pleased with the state's recognition, mostly on his father's behalf.
"Seeing how he and his father worked ... their whole lives went into the property, it becomes a part of you," he said. "I'm thrilled he's in good-enough health that he can still have this recognition."
