Sites Overview
Our Story
The Lighthouse
Our story began on 10 acres in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia when our founder and owner-operator, Tracy Frist, purchased her antebellum home, Bellevue. A year later, an additional farm of 40 acres allowed some expansion, and a handful of cattle were purchased. The new addition happened to be the headwaters of Sinking Creek. Being attentive to the health of the creek, Tracy established the first of the farm’s riparian buffers.
A few years later, a neighboring tract of land sitting one mile west, which house the historic Craig County Poor Farm, was designated for development. Tracy purchased this land to save it from development and immediately incorporated federal tree and riparian programs to help fence the land and water ways for ecological herd management. Clean water access wells were added, and a five-year project of cleaning up trash piles and restoring the farm to its full grazing potential went into effect.
In 2015, Tracy and Bill Frist expanded the farm again by acquiring the adjoining land parcel to the Poor Farm adding Moses, the Scale House, and the Green House.
The Farm and Sinking Creek now encompasses more than 900 acres and actively promotes and protects the unique culture, conservation, and history of this central Appalachian region.
Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that our gathering is on the traditional homelands of Indigenous Peoples and on the ancestral hunting lands of the Monacan/Tutelo People. We honor the unique and enduring relationship these Indigenous Peoples had and have for the land, animals, and waters. We are grateful for their stewardship for the lands where we today have the privilege to live. We strive to learn from their tradition of living in harmony with nature and environment, and to take action to sustain it for generations to come.
Preservation
We have learned that generational traits are handed down by many avenues. Children become strong, complete citizens through many facets – genetics, role models, oral histories, individualism, and a sense of community are a few. If a child walks their main street and doesn’t see an 1800s courthouse that handled civil issues, if they don’t see a railroad bed that carried coal to fuel the world, if they don’t see an old livestock scale house to weigh food sources, or if they never see a Chestnut log structure knowing this tree is extinct, then they only see modernization. Their world becomes too sterile to develop true character and understanding of the course of nature. Without the rich trail of history evident in their daily lives, the wisdom and lessons of preceding generations will forever be lost.
At The Farm at Sinking Creek, preservation is one of our driving forces. Please visit each of our sites and learn more about our preservation projects at the farm.
Sinking Creek Blog
