{"nrhp_refnum":"09001053","name":"Four Locust Farm","other_names":["Pettus Dairy Farm"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"US Rt. 15","address_restricted":false,"city":"Keysville","county":"Charlotte County","state":"VA","lat":37.06945256250006,"lon":-78.47813544833969,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2009-12-03","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Agriculture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Four Locust Farm, also known as the Pettus Dairy Farm, is a 332.8-acre farm district about one mile north of Keysville in Charlotte County, Virginia. It centers on a vernacular farmhouse built around 1859 and a row of twentieth-century dairy farm buildings.","why_significant":"The farm is significant as a well-preserved example of a Richmond milkshed dairy farm, with intact sanitary concrete-block dairy barns, silos and a milk house. It shows the Pettus family's shift from tobacco to dairying in 1925, and the farmhouse reflects mid-nineteenth-century rural building traditions.","narrative":"Four Locust Farm, once the Pettus Dairy Farm, occupies 332.8 acres of rolling pasture about one mile north of Keysville in Charlotte County, Virginia. A two-story frame farmhouse, dated to about 1859, faces the highway, while a farm road leads west past dairy barns, silos, a milk house, a workshop, equipment sheds, cattle pens and tenant houses. The property includes 22 contributing buildings and seven contributing structures. The farm grew tobacco from 1919, but falling prices in the 1920s led the Pettus family to build a dairy barn in 1925 and keep a 100-head Holstein-Friesian herd. The barns follow the sanitary Richmond milkshed pattern, with concrete-block lower levels, many windows, extensive ventilation and James Manufacturing Company weathervanes. Interior milking stalls, pipes and milk-house fittings remain largely intact. Dairying ended in 1962, and beef cattle have since been raised on the same buildings and land, which remain in careful use.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Other: Vernacular","criteria":[],"status_note":"Farm buildings are well maintained and in use for the ongoing beef cattle operation, storing hay, equipment and general supplies; the dairy operation ended in 1962.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:02.432998-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/39/6800/41680039/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/09001053.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09001053/9c0e9295ca-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09001053/9c0e9295ca-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jwb23974","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Four_Locust_Farm,_Keysville,_VA,_Charlotte_County.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Jwb23974</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Four_Locust_Farm,_Keysville,_VA,_Charlotte_County.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41680039","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Locust_Farm","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14712333"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/charlotte-county/four-locust-farm-09001053/"}