A Widow's 1877 Farm Is Now Burleson's Art Center

When Dr. Robert Russell died in 1876, his widow Martha Glenn Russell didn't fold up the family. She bought 540 acres south of what's now Burleson and moved her five children into a brand-new three-room farmhouse on Christmas Eve, 1877. Two of those original rooms still sit at the core of the house, with the library, dining room, and bedrooms added on around them as the family grew.

The farm stayed in the family until Charlie and Louise Boren took it on, moving out in 1979. Charlie became known for his wood sculpture, and together the Borens turned the old homestead into Russell Farm Art Center, with studios, galleries, home tours, and grounds open to the public. In 2012 they donated the thirty-acre site to the City of Burleson.

It rounds out Johnson County's history beyond courthouses and railroads — a pioneer woman's working farm that a couple of artists kept alive and handed to the public, so the 1877 house and the land around it are still somewhere you can walk.