The Ball Eddleman McFarland House is now officially a Tarrant County Master Gardener Project! This new project is a result of Historic Fort Worth, Inc. gifting Thistle Hill to Cook Children’s in mid-2022. Keith Olmsted, lead Master Gardener at Thistle Hill since 2016 after starting at Thistle Hill in 2015, will now be the lead at McFarland House. His co-lead is Elizabeth Staples, who was also a loyal volunteer at Thistle Hill.

The grounds of McFarland House are presently undergoing major landscape changes due to a recent $5,000 grant from the Tarrant Regional Water District. Emphasis will be placed on water conservation, a butterfly garden, native heirloom plants and a general overall teaching environment for the visiting public. The project will add two stone benches, bird baths, and large stone to some of the flower beds. This renovation is phase one of landscape improvements.

Phase two will be to clear approximately 75 feet behind the back area of the house and to rebuild the stone terraces cascading down the hillside. Phase three will be to clear the remaining, undesirable trees on the back hillside towards the Trinity River. Walking trails and other improvements will encourage members of the nearby community to utilize McFarland House for walking, exercising, bird watching, picnicking, and gardening demonstrations the Master Gardeners may teach. School groups will eventually be included with an assortment of horticultural activities.

Located on a bluff overlooking the 1892 Holly Water Treatment Plant and the Trinity River, Sarah Perry Ball, a wealthy Galveston widow, hired English architect Howard Messer to design a high-styled Victorian home in Fort Worth. They moved into the $38,000 house in 1899 and, although they missed the Galveston hurricane of 1900, Sarah’s son died in 1901, as did Sarah in 1904.

In 1904, Weatherford’s William H. Eddleman and wife Sarah Conger Eddleman purchased 1110 Penn Street and moved in with their daughter, Caroline (Carrie) Aurelia, and her husband Hays McFarland. Without any children of her own, Carrie established and participated in numerous service organizations, and many helped children. Carrie lived at the house known as “McFarland House” until her death in 1978 at the age of 100.

The grounds of McFarland House are a little over 1.3 acres and the street level gardens were filled with large shrubs next to the house and an antique rose garden behind the house. The back of the lot sloped sharply to Fournier Street. Behind the house irises filled terraced beds on both sides of a walkway down to the carriage house.

Historic Fort Worth, Inc. and the Tarrant County Master Gardeners plan to restore the terraces on the hillside behind McFarland House. A horse trough is all that remains of the carriage house that burned in a fire on the Lancaster Bridge in the 1940’s.

Project Lead & co-lead:	Keith Olmsted & Elizabeth Staples
Contact Info:	In Membership Directory
Workdays:	Tuesday
Time:	8:00 am - 11:00 am, Summer 9:00 am - 12:00 am, Winter
Location:	1110 Penn St., Fort Worth, TX 76102
TCMGA Activity Code:	Demonstration Gardens