The Burks Farm

The Burks Farm is located four miles southwest of Dyersburg on Unionville Road.

In July of 1901, Seaton B. Burks and his wife Minnie Ann Burks founded the farm with the purchase of 202 acres. The acreage increased to 279 in November of 1907.

Seaton Burks died in 1936. Cleve Edward Burks, the son of Seaton and Minnie, bought the farm from the remaining children in November 1939. Cleve, his wife, Beulah Hendren Burks, and son, Cleve Jr. farmed the land with sharecroppers. In return for farming the land, the sharecroppers would receive roughly half of the crop. Cleve Burks passed away in 1969.

Cleve Edward Burks Jr. bought the farm from Beulah in 1970. He continued farming the land until he retired in 1971. Since then the land has been rented out. Cleve Jr. passed away in 1991 and the farm passed to Cleve Edward Burks III, James Dent Burks and Linda Drake Burks.

The farm is equally divided into half woods and half row crops. Soybeans and corn are the crops of choice for Roger and Allen Meadows who have rented the farm for the past nine years.

An original log building from the 19th century still stands at the farm. It is a 12-by-14 hand-hewn log building used to store mule plows and antique farming items.