Cumberland Homestead

What a beautiful day! Bob and I decided to make it a museum day, so we drove to the Homesteads Tower Museum. There we learned about some of the history of this area. Back in the 1930s, times were hard and many people had no jobs. The federal government under Franklin Delano Roosevelt instigated a work program that not only paid men to work but provided a house that these wages would pay for. In this area, 10,000 acres were purchased to become the Cumberland Homestead, eventually consisting of 250 homes, a school, a park area, a stone water tower, and a building for headquarters. A museum now resides in the headquarters and water tower.

The museum is small but is packed with information. Bob and I started with a short, fascinating film of the history of the Cumberland Homestead, before looking at the exhibits and then climbing the 97 steps up the water tower.

Ooh, our legs were complaining, but we made it! We also decided to visit another part of the museum system, a house that was one of the original homesteads in the project. But it wasn't open for another hour, so we killed time by checking out nearby Chestnut Hill Winery for a tasting. This handsome couple greeted us at the door.

We bought a bottle of peach infused wine to be enjoyed at some later date, before heading to the house tour. Along the way we stopped at the Cumberland State Park to snap some photos of the bridge.

And then it was time to tour the house. What a neat little home. It has been restored to look the way it did when it was built in the 1930s.

Inside the home, original paneling still covered the walls. Eleanor Roosevelt planned the features of these little houses, which included indoor plumbing and wiring for electricity that was hooked up several years after the houses were built, when the electric plant was finally built. Our tour guide told us that oftentimes the man of the house refused to have a bathroom inside their house, never having had such a thing. The wives generally were in favor of it, however!

We were impressed with the number of closets and the simplicity of the house. Bob and I agreed it would be a very nice house to live in.

A couple of people have asked us if we are going to be in the path of Hurricane Matthew at all. Fortunately, we are far enough west so that I doubt we will even see rain from it. But our hearts go out to those in the path of that deadly storm.