The past remains part of the present at Gray/Campbell Farmstead, a tucked-away Springfield park that features vintage buildings representing Ozarks history.
The public is welcome to come visit the park where a variety of vintage buildings teach about the past. There’s a barn and log kitchen, both from Stone County, Missouri, a still-largely-rural place southwest of Springfield. A one-room school, a kitchen garden, a log granary and a cemetery – all moved to their current places — also showcase rural Missouri life in the 1860s.
The Gray/Campbell Farmstead at Nathanael Greene Park teaches about what pioneer life was like in the 1860s.
And at the heart of it all is one of the Springfield area’s oldest homes: The Gray/Campbell house, built in 1856 by James Price Gray. Later, its story was intertwined with the Campbell family, one of whose members is credited with settling Springfield.
The homestead is located at Nathanael Greene Park, but it’s run by a group of volunteers who help make its history accessible to the public. It’s free to see and open seasonally most weekends; for field trips; and on special occasions like the annual 1860s Lifestyles Expo in September.
A barn moved from the Hurley, Missouri, area helps illustrate the agricultural side of pioneer life.
“This is a wonderful spot, because this park is such a beautiful park, and it brings in so many people,” says Debbie Hammer, a volunteer with the farmstead. “When we're out here, whether we're out here on the weekend or for an event, we have people from all over the world that come here.”
The two-room white home at the park’s heart arrived in the 1980s, about 130 years after it was built near the intersection of today’s Kansas Expressway and James River Freeway. It was part of an emerging chapter of regional history: Of settlers moving west from places like Kentucky and Tennessee after Native Americans were forced from the land.
The Gray/Campbell house was built in 1856 by James Price Gray. It was originally located a few miles south of Springfield’s modern city limits.
Through the 1950s, it was called home.
“The last person living there was Robert Campbell, and then the house sat for about 40 years vacant,” says Hammer. “They used it for storage and for cattle and things like that. So it was not in good repair when the historical preservation society found it.”
But the Springfield-Greene County Historical Preservation Society was up for a challenge. One of the young group’s goals was to help preserve historical buildings and sites, and find “economically viable uses for them,” noted a representative of the organization in 1981.
A plush pig illustrates how hogs were processed in the past.
“It is the only surviving pioneer-generation farmstead on the Kickapoo Prairie, as far as local historians have been able to determine,” notes a 1983 Springfield Leader and Press article.
Two years later, the group was focused on moving the Gray home, and began raising funds for its preservation as highway expansion also threatened its future.
“Historic preservation is a worthy task, but incredibly difficult,” noted an editorial in the Springfield Leader and Press in 1983. “Virtually everything has to be done from an economic standpoint. Many people who would like to preserve buildings cannot do so because of the cost. Perhaps the Society’s work can change Greene County attitudes in this regard.”
In September 1984, the group succeeded: The house was picked up and moved to Nathanael Greene Park in southwest Springfield. It began the collection of buildings that make up the homestead today, all brought together to showcase different parts of local history.
Today, the two-room house is filled with period furnishings and decor that showcases life in the 1860s. Beds are placed across from a loom and spinning wheel in one room, while another includes a living area complete with chairs and a table set with dishes.
Debbie Hammer, a volunteer with the Gray/Campbell Farmstead, shows buttons that were found at the home’s original site.
Hammer pulls a case from a cabinet filled with a collection of buttons.
“This is one of my favorite things to show the kids because we talk about timelines, and these buttons were all found around the house,” she says, noting that at the time the house was moved, archaeological work was done by local students to recover such items. “So you have fabric-covered buttons all the way up to plastic, which they wouldn’t have had when the house was built.”
Some of those things offer an abstract look at history: “What are these things? How did they work?” (Those questions are also a perfect connection for folks like Hammer, who long taught fifth grade and took her students on field trips to the homestead.)
“We talk about the nails that were handmade,” she continues, walking to the table that’s set with dishes, pointing to some utensils. “Just looking at the artifacts you can learn about the people who used them. The bowls of the spoons were exactly the same shape – but over time heat and friction wore this one down. We talk about, ‘Was the person right-handed or left-handed?’ And the kids look at the angle and can tell. We talk about the bone dish and how they saved the bones and boiled them to make their stocks and chicken broth and things like that.”
Other ties come through shared history with ancestors.
“One of the things that we talk about is that this part of the country was really inhabited after Missouri became a state,” Hammer says. “All of these people from Tennessee and Kentucky started coming up here because they could get land. They have a big connection that way, too.”
The home is furnished with period items that tell the story of how pioneers once lived.
Over time, the other buildings were added that showcase other parts of local pioneer life. Even when the farmstead is closed, its ground are open for visitors to come see the buildings from the outside (and, in the case of the school, stand on a special staircase to see through the windows).
One example is in the barn, where a green Springfield Wagon sits. “The Springfield Wagon Company churned out upwards of 200,000 sturdy farm, freight and specialty wagons in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and also helped pioneer the trucking industry by developing trailers as the horse-drawn era gave way to motor power,” notes a previous Ozarks Alive article.
A Springfield Wagon, one of nearly 200,000 that were produced in the Ozarks, is on display at the Gray/Campbell Farmstead.
In contrast, places like the one-room Liberty School are closer to home for folks like Norma Tolbert, a volunteer who actually attended the school as a child.
Norma Tolbert, a volunteer with the Gray/Campbell Farmstead, actually attended the former Liberty School school as a child. The school was moved from its original location north of Springfield to the Gray/Campbell Farmstead.
“My aunt taught school here in 1919,” says Tolbert. “She was born in 1900 so she was just 19 years old, and my dad was one of her students – her younger brother – and they had about 30 students in here.”
Back then, it was located north of Springfield near where Fellows Lake is today. After the school consolidated in the 1950s, the building was sold, moved, and used by a farmer for storage. Later, it was where sailboats were repaired. And eventually, it returned to its original purpose – as a place to learn – with its move to the park.
“When we had our celebration in 2014 about eight or 10 of them were able to come,” says Tolbert. “So there's a few still around beside myself that remember. One of the good things for me is when they walked in, they said, ‘Oh, this reminds me so much of the old school.’”
Some of those lessons come through school field trips, which have become a hallmark part of the park’s work (and groups may schedule).
The visits through the barn and kitchen and other stops showcase ways of life – including where food comes from – that can be foreign to kids in the 21st century.
“They get all their food from the grocery store,” Hammer says, “And so you'll say, ‘What kind of food do you think they grew out here?’”
“‘Oranges?’”
Visits and field trips happen throughout the year and may be scheduled outside of normal operating hours. Special events include its Spring Showcase and Christmas at the Farmstead — the latter set for Dec. 6, 2025.
Gray/Campbell Farmstead’s annual 1860s Lifestyles Expo features traditions and entertainment. In 2025, it’s set for Sept. 20. (Images courtesy of the Gray/Campbell Farmstead)
Another key time to visit is in September, during the park’s signature 1860s Lifestyles Expo. In 2025, the free one-day event on Sept. 20 features demonstrations of woodworking, textiles — like quilting and rug hooking — cooking, Native American history, music, and kids activities. There is also an apple pie-baking contest and costume parade.
Another place to visit…
If you’re interested in agriculture-based activities, another option to consider in Springfield is Rutledge-Wilson Community Farm Park. This stop, also part of the Springfield-Greene County Park Board, includes animal barns, visitor center and gift shop, farm-themed playground, a fishing pond, 20-acre native prairie, pasture land, garden plot rentals, a trailhead and one-mile paved trail along Wilson's Creek Greenway, and Wilson's Creek.
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