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For most visitors, the front door to the small, white frame farmhouse offers an instructive portal to the past, entry to a living room infused with original furnishings reflecting the hardscrabble history of agricultural life on Colorado’s northern plains.
For Liz Bee Harrison and her brother, Bob Bee, crossing that threshold conjures memories: That measles-ridden winter when their father lifted Liz from her bed and carried her into the living room to behold the Christmas tree. Bob leaning into the radio to hear episodes of “The Lone Ranger.”
Outside, on a quarter-section of farmland just north of Fort Collins, they bore witness as the fourth generation to carve out a living from the arid ground. The effort not only sustained a family, but also — thanks in part to an ethic of conserving almost everything — accrued artifacts from horse-drawn plows to vintage machinery to volumes of documentation and even correspondence.
When the family finally stopped farming and relinquished most of its 160 acres, one 10-acre slice still had a story to tell. Since its launch as a nonprofit in 2005, the Bee Family Centennial Farm Museum has given both casual visitors and students of the state’s history an uncommonly comprehensive interpretation of the region’s agricultural past.
For nearly two decades it has been a grassroots operation run on a shoestring, powered primarily by Liz, with her husband, Rich Harrison, and a collection of family and other volunteers dedicated to preserving its history.
Left: Siblings Bob Bee, front row far left, and Liz Harrison, back row, second from left, in a 1954 family photo with their parents and five other siblings. Right: Harrison and Bee at the Bee Family Centennial Farm on Jan. 31 in Fort Collins. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
But now Liz, 75, has decided to step back from the everyday demands of her role, and the farm museum sits in limbo — closed for the winter, it has announced it won’t reopen this spring — as its band of ardent supporters seeks a path forward. Inevitably that path would require additional financial backing and staffing to transition to a more polished operation.
The alternative seems almost unthinkable.
“It’d be very sad to let it go,” Liz says, “so there’s kind of mixed feelings about it all. It has been rewarding to be able to share it with people and I think for the most part, people have really appreciated that.”
What began for her as a way to avoid splitting up the trove of family possessions has gradually morphed even this labor of love into more than she can reasonably handle.
“Just the importance of keeping everything together was my initial motivation for doing this,” Liz says. “And then, as you get older, it gets harder to do everything. We’ve had some good help along the way, but they get older and quit, too.”
As a tourist attraction, the farm museum has been a well-kept secret: Most years, seasonal visitors numbered only in the hundreds during its limited Friday-Saturday hours. But those who have stopped in at the property just off Interstate 25 could experience everything from quotidian tasks of domestic farm life to caring for the farm’s variety of animals to the cultivation of crops ranging from corn and beans to sugar beets, the “white gold” that once defined the region.
“Liz could put together an exhibit using chicken wire and pieces of paper and a light bulb and suddenly, it looks good,” says Adam Thomas, an associate professor of history at Colorado State University who serves on the nonprofit’s board. “But I think we’re at the point where we have to step to the next level, which is someone who’s a professional at this who not only can run the farm and lead tours, but someone who can help develop it more for the future.”
Crafting a solution to help retain an uncommonly expansive historical resource poses the next high-plains challenge for a property that now sits dormant, facing an uncertain future.
A trove of agricultural history
The current farm site dates to 1894, when John and Fanny Bee’s relatives by marriage, the Morses, purchased the land. A few years later, the Bees sold their own homestead and physically moved their house to the Morse property, starting a family farming heritage that would encompass four generations.
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The farm then rode the prosperous rise of Colorado’s sugar beet industry in the early 20th century — which, coupled with the acquisition of shares of irrigated water, helped finance expansion and ventures into raising sheep and even a dairy operation. The family hired migrant workers, first German-Russians and later Mexicans, whose on-site housing still stands, with original furnishings.
The property yielded its last harvest as a working farm in 2004, 10 years after it achieved recognition as a Colorado Centennial Farm and two years after it earned listing in the National Register of Historic Places. That year the family sold 140 of its 160 acres to CSU — a land-grant school whose college of agricultural sciences predates the Bees’ arrival in Colorado by 12 years — and placed the land in a conservation easement with Larimer County to guard against development.
Ten acres were devoted to the farm museum. Five were used for a highway overpass and the other five remain privately owned by the family.
The historic property — including sheds, barns, granaries and garages — represents an agricultural throwback that’s now surrounded by CSU’s cutting-edge farm operations. It includes three houses: the original 1894 structure, still replete with furnishings, that was the Morse homestead; the 1942 house; and a larger 1957 house that remains the private residence for the Harrisons.
The exhibits opened for visitors from May to October, but only on Fridays and Saturdays.
Liz and Bob, 71, are conversant in all aspects of the farm, but the 1942 house, in particular, allows them the chance to share childhood memories — from their bunk beds to their old lunch boxes that line a shelf in the kitchen to the newfangled washer, complete with wringer, that replaced the washboard of their youth.
“This was the first time we had electricity and indoor plumbing, when this house was built,” Liz recalls.
“And here’s how much it cost to build,” adds Bob, showing the construction invoice. “Three thousand dollars.”
Out on the grounds, there are barns and sheds built for chickens, horses, cows and the milking operation. A garage constructed in 1918 still houses ancient John Deere tractors — early game-changers from horse-powered agriculture — while other farm machinery sits outside along with the water wagon that once made horse-drawn trips to Fort Collins and returned to fill cisterns on the property before the advent of piped water service.
Kids could live the early farm experience by washing clothes on a washboard, “milking” a wooden cow, pulling a horse-drawn plow and any number of other hands-on activities. For a while, the property also hosted vintage baseball games played by 1864 rules — no gloves, for instance — but discontinued them several years ago.
Garages still contain automobiles ranging from a Ford Model T to the family’s vintage Chevrolet. A large machine shed served as the museum’s interpretive center, with several explanatory exhibits charting the farm’s development and giving kids an opportunity to experiment with early irrigation techniques.
Vintage family vehicles and a map depicting a cross-country road trip on display at the museum. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
One building the museum doesn’t have: restroom facilities aside from a porta-potty, a situation that has limited attendance due to county regulations. Still, within that relatively narrow two-day-a-week window, the farm museum has in recent years welcomed as many as 1,568 visitors — a high-water mark achieved in 2014, according to the folksy, conversational annual reports that also note happenings like the annual birth of livestock.
(From the farm museum’s 2020 annual report: “We had 2 calves this spring, Kirby and Lucy. We got two lambs, a pig, six baby chicks, and 3 turkeys. The turkeys were single breasted bronze and roosted on the top rail of the fence at night.”)
Like many of the mechanical relics that rest on the grounds, the museum’s marketing machinery has leaned toward tradition and understatement. A float in the Wellington Fourth of July Parade. Some brochures. A booth at the Avery House, a historic site in Fort Collins where Liz learned about the art of historical interpretation. More recently, some ad trade-outs with websites.
But for now, the Bee Family Centennial Farm Museum remains closed to the public as the nonprofit behind it searches for the means to continue its mission.
“One thing we want to make clear is what we’re not doing,” Liz says. “We’re not selling the 10 acres and we’re not getting rid of artifacts — at this point, at least. I think we’ve accepted the fact that we are at the point where we need to close. But it would be very nice if someone else would take it over.”
An uncommon historical resource
Left: Personal belongings other artifacts on display at the Bee Family Centennial Farm Museum. Right: Liz and Rich Harrison uncover a vintage Chevrolet in a garage on the grounds. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
Nearly 24 years ago, Adam Thomas was in his first year of graduate school pursuing a master’s in history at CSU when one of his professors directed him to work with a family nearby on gaining historic designation for what they envisioned as a farm museum. The prospect did not excite him.
He rolled his eyes but dutifully headed to the Bee family’s property for a look. It was March, and a spring storm had turned the landscape into a mixture of mud and snow that did nothing to improve his outlook.
“And then I remember opening one of the buildings and seeing the collection,” Thomas recalls. “Then Liz started sharing the archives with me and it was one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever seen. It just blew me away. And I have been committed to that institution ever since that day.”
He’s come a long way since that first visit toward appreciating what the resource provides — and why it would be a shame to lose it.
“It was one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever seen. It just blew me away. And I have been committed to that institution ever since that day.
— CSU professor Adam Thomas, on seeing the Bee collection for the first time
Much of his reasoning centers on the authenticity that more than 100 years in the same family brings to the farm. He notes that in most museums there’s a “level of artifice” in the history they present simply because their artifacts come from a variety of sources — which is fine, at a superficial level.
But the Bee family’s ability to preserve so much of their history, in ways large and small, sets it apart by providing an unusual level of cohesion to the narrative behind making a living in agriculture on the high plains of northern Colorado. The collection of buildings, furnishings, farm machinery and vintage vehicles stands on its own merits.
Add the archive of records and correspondence and the picture gains texture and depth.
“You’ll see a letter between maybe a father and son talking about the need to buy a new tractor,” Thomas explains. “And then you’ll see a flyer from some farm supply company, and then you’ll see the invoice for the tractor. Then they have the canceled check for the tractor. And finally, the tractor is sitting right there. They haven’t thrown any of this away.”
Thomas has found the Bee farm particularly useful, from a teaching standpoint, because it addresses so many facets of local history. For instance, his architectural history students could study what’s known as vernacular construction, or basically buildings erected over the years using or reusing whatever materials might be available locally. One of the farm buildings still stands with telegraph pole arms repurposed as rafters — the company’s name and the date remain imprinted on them.
He could take his graduate students in state and local history to the property and dig into how its stories are told. A class focused on archives could filter through the massive collection of documents.
“There are so many layers beyond just agricultural history,” Thomas says.
Liz Harrison and, on occasion, other Bee family members have provided yet another layer — a voice that could speak to visitors with the authority of lived experience.
Jared Orsi, the former state historian and current professor of history at CSU, says the museum doesn’t just try to capture moments in time, but instead presents a continuum. And that approach, amplified by personal accounts, has set it apart from others.
“I think the ability for visitors to hear it directly from people who were involved, that’s maybe not absolutely unique, but it’s unusual,” he says. “This is not people interpreting this stuff years after the fact. Liz lived there.”
Orsi sees a dual purpose for the Bee farm, starting with what it offers in terms of hands-on family activities. But he also notes that part of his role at the university is to train students to share documented historical knowledge with the public.
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To that end, the Bee family has been an excellent partner, hosting both graduate and undergraduate interns over the years and providing training in areas like interpretation as well as how to run a nonprofit.
“Beyond the four walls of the classroom and the four pages of a syllabus, they were doing hands-on history, basically,” he says. “And so that has been an important part of our program in educating future historians at CSU.”
And beyond the farm’s tourism or academic value, Orsi sees a broader sociological impact. Here Coloradans from all backgrounds — whether they’re a school class or random visitors — can converge in a way that fosters understanding and helps bridge the rural-urban divide.
“Places like the Bee farm, because they bring together people who might not otherwise ordinarily encounter one another, I think they’re priceless,” he says.
Thomas now thinks back to his initial skepticism as a young graduate student about the farm museum and laughs. There’s no overstating its historical value.
“I’m finally at the point where I can say, I’m actually a professional — I teach this, I have a Ph.D. in this,” he says. “And I can tell you, it’s very significant. But the problem is the site itself doesn’t convey that when you first see it. You have to dig into it. And then it sort of blows you away.”
Left: One of the displays depicting a scale model of the property. Center: Bob Bee and Liz Harrison enter the interpretive center, a former machine shed, on the museum grounds. Right: John Deere tractors from the 1950s in one of the farm’s buildings. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
Finding a way to preserve the mission
Carrying on the farm museum’s work presents both financial and logistical hurdles.
The board needs to identify a dependable structure and stream of income to keep the operation going. Liz and Rich and others have been working for free. To even begin to imagine a transition requires determining a price tag for their contributions maintaining and running the museum.
Currently, the farm museum operates on a budget of only $20,000, with no paid employees and entirely volunteer labor to cover maintenance and operations.
“We’re definitely shifting from a model where we rely heavily on family members just doing the work, and now we’re ready to think about what the value of that work actually is. How much does that actually cost?” Thomas says. “When you think about the job description itself, it’s someone who has to be able to feed livestock and build exhibits. So it’s not easy.”
Another gotta-have: a visitor facility, complete with actual restrooms, that would create the capacity for the museum to increase its hours of operation and become a more viable attraction.
“I don’t know how practical it is,” Thomas says, “but it’s feasible.”
The museum board also is considering trying to partner with another history- or agriculture-related nonprofit to possibly share governance in some way. Another possibility: Try to hire at least a part-time employee to have a presence on site — or even better, multiple people. Thomas acknowledges that’s not realistic at the moment, but would be an option if the museum can find a new source of revenue.
Liz says that while a few of the fifth-generation Bee descendants have expressed interest in the museum, none feel like they’re in a position to take over. And while she’s ready to hand the reins to a new management, she suggests that if a complete solution doesn’t emerge quickly, perhaps the transition could happen in stages.
It would be difficult, but she’d pitch in for a while longer if it meant saving family and agricultural heritage.
“For a few years, we could do that,” Liz says. “Maybe we could still help behind the scenes, to train someone else. I’d be willing to do that.”