Work on Museum at Pierce Farm to Begin

Pierce College will soon begin converting a portion of the school’s farm into an agricultural museum, President Mary Lee said.

Volunteers are being sought for an Aug. 12 work party to renovate old chicken houses and other structures to hold the museum, she said.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History in Exposition Park, she said, has donated an old wagon, a thresher, a bean planter and a portable cattle chute.

The school recently did away with a longstanding arrangement in which a local farmer operated the school’s farm stand and grew crops on the surrounding 25 acres.

Under Lee’s most recent plan, the acreage would be merged with the school’s agricultural program, and the stand would be contracted out to someone who would bring in pumpkins and Christmas trees to sell.

Lee said she plans to meet with the school’s agricultural department in the fall to discuss how to merge the farm into the school’s agricultural program.

But Margo Murman, head of a group working to preserve the farm, said she would prefer that the school not wait until fall to discuss the farm’s future. “This should be an ongoing thing,” she said.