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

After Dr. Robert Russell died in 1876, Martha Glenn Russell bought 540 acres south of today's Burleson. She moved her five children into a new three-room farmhouse on Christmas Eve, 1877. Two of those first rooms still sit at the core of the house.

The farm stayed in the family until Charlie and Louise Boren took it on. Charlie became known for wood sculpture, and the Borens turned the homestead into Russell Farm Art Center. In 2012, they donated the 30-acre site to the City of Burleson.

It broadens Johnson County's story beyond courthouses and railroads: a widow's working farm, kept alive by artists, now open as public ground.