Two farms in Carbon County won’t fall victim to future residential or commercial development.

They’ll remain farms, and continue to produce food and provide employment for years to come.

Both Fairyland Farms in Franklin Township and a farm owned by William and Carol Eckert in Towamensing Township recently became part of Pennsylvania’s Farmland Preservation program.

“The beauty about the Farmland Preservation (program) is even if for some reason the farm would no longer be in my family, at least we know that it will remain a farm,” said Luke Graver, a fifth generation owner of Fairyland Farms.

The program purchases development rights to ensure that farmers have land to feed families — and that the farms will never be sold to developers.

Eckert farm

“I wanted to leave a place for the animals to live and a place to grow food for people,” Eckert said.

Approximately $1 million, which includes $699,302 in state funds and $383,360 in county funds, is going toward the purchase of development rights for 78 acres of Eckert’s land and 129 acres of Fairyland Farms.

“I’m so happy this has happened,” Eckert said.

A native of Quakertown, Eckert recalled walking a mile-long dirt road to reach his school bus, and checking the traps he had set along the way.

“I’ve been outside my whole life,” he said. “I lived to hunt and trap.”

And when he was in high school, he spent summers on his neighbor’s Quakertown area farm.

“I just loved being on the farm with kids my age,” he said.

Being outside, whether in the forest or on a farm, was something he relished.

Eckert was drafted and sent to Vietnam. After his service, he found the woman he would marry.

Carol loved the outdoors, too.

“I found the right woman who wanted the same thing, and we both saved our money,” he said. “It took us until we were in our 50s, but we finally saved enough to buy this farm.”

In 2000, they purchased their dream home: a farmhouse with 94 acres of surrounding farmland.

“We always wanted to farm, but by the time we bought it, we were too old to get into farming,” Eckert said. “But we like to watch stuff grow and the animals in it, so we lease the fields to a farmer.”

The land supports corn, oats and hay.

After some research, Eckert found that the home was built in 1873.

“And it was a farm,” he said. “One of the past owners gave us a picture that actually shows mules pulling a plow right behind the house.”

Eckert said he was also told that Native Americans had a camp in one of the fields.

“I can’t prove that. I know a lot of people were collecting arrowheads when we bought the place,” he said. “We did find a place where they made their arrowheads and there was a pile of stone pieces from making arrowheads.”

Eckert remembered visiting the township office in 2003 to secure an occupancy permit.

“When I did that, they asked me if I would be interested in preserving the land. I said, ‘That’s exactly what I would love to do,’ ” he recalled.

He knew that a developer had been also interested in purchasing the land when it was listed for sale.

“We have property on both sides of the road so we have a ton of road frontage, and it could have all been 2-acre lots,” he said.

But because of the Eckerts’ decision to participate in the Farmland Preservation program, development will never happen.

“I’m just glad it finally happened before I died,” Eckert said.

Fairyland Farms

Fairyland Farms was started more than 100 years ago by Robert and Christiana Diehl — and at that point it was 1,200 acres, said Graver, the Diehl’s great-great grandson and one of the farm’s owners.

Their land spanned what is now Beltzville Lake, but after a fire struck, the couple purchased land at the present-day location.

“It looked nothing like it does now,” Graver said. “When Robert Diehl purchased the farm (in 1922), there was just one barn and one house that was eventually torn down.”

The Diehls began as dairy farmers, and raised their children, Kathryn and Willis there.

Operations grew to include turkeys and pigs.

“The farm really took off in the 1930s and ’40s,” Graver said. “At the time, we were entering into World War II. You either went to the war or you worked on a farm. A lot of folks were working on the farm — at one point I believe there were 40 full-time men.”

Graver said that Robert Diehl wanted the farm to be a place where people could visit, spend time with their families and learn about agriculture. He added a pavilion, dairy bar and refreshment stand, and began organizing musical performances.

June Carter, who would marry Johnny Cash, was among the guests.

“She and her sisters and their mother were part of the Carter Family, and they performed at the farm,” Graver said. “There were other names, such as Arizona Kid, and a whole list of folks at that time that were big and popular.”

Diehl passed away in 1951, and the performances began to dwindle.

“It was still an active farm. The farm actually had their own semiprofessional baseball team called the Fairyland Farms Cardinals,” Graver said. “They were actually a pretty good team, and they would have baseball games at the farm and travel for other games.”

In the 1970s, Christiana Diehl passed away and the farm was split between children Kathryn and Willis. The dairy portion ceased around that time.

“My great grandmother (Kathryn Diehl Miller) obtained ownership of the dairy bar, the store and the main part of the farm” while Willis Diehl received other parts of the land to farm, Graver said.

Kathryn and her husband had a son, Robert Miller, who took over the farm with his wife, Fern, in the early 1980s.

Fern Miller transformed the dairy bar into Miller’s Country Store, which closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Millers’ health. Robert Miller passed away in August of that year.

“Even though we didn’t have the dairy bar any more, we still continued to farm,” Graver said. “We raise beef cattle and sheep, and we still do that today.”

The family also remained heavily involved in 4-H ever since Robert Diehl showed at the Lehighton Fair.

“My great-grandmother showed livestock; my grandparents, my parents and myself — and now my children show,” Graver said. “We are a six generation family farm.”

Along with Graver, the farm is owned by Danadee M. Miller-Boyle, Diane L. Miller-Graver, Deanna L. Wentz and Sara J. Keiser.

Owners, he said, began looking into preserving the land about a decade ago.

“At that time, there was a lot of talk about the township being developed,” Graver said. “They were talking about things such as warehouses.

“We thought, ‘You know, maybe we need to look into this because once the land is gone, it’s gone. There’s no turning back.”