An old dairy barn is seen on a hill on the Bailey Farm near Springhetti Road in Snohomish on Wednesday.

An old dairy barn is seen on a hill on the Bailey Farm near Springhetti Road in Snohomish on Wednesday.

270-acre Snohomish family farm saved for generations to come

SNOHOMISH — Sprawling suburbia won’t swallow a 103-year-old farm here.

As quaint countryside turns into cookie-cutter neighborhoods of tract houses, the Bailey family made a deal to keep developers at bay.

Now, 270 acres in the pastoral Snohomish River Valley are protected for agriculture. The Bailey Farm will keep growing vegetables, berries and cash crops in picturesque fields along Springhetti Road for years to come.

The family signed a conservation easement in December with the nonprofit PCC Farmland Trust and Snohomish County.

About half of the money for $1.1 million agreement came from a county Conservation Futures Program grant.

The rest came from the trust. It was started by PCC Natural Markets but is now run independent of the Seattle-based co-op. Since 1999, the trust has preserved 17 farms across the state.

The deal allows the Bailey family to keep tending the newly safeguarded land, just as they have for five generations.

In 1888, Albert and Ellen Bailey arrived on the shores of the Snohomish River. After their honeymoon, the English couple settled. They started farming on 40 acres along the river in 1913.

Their son, Earle Bailey, expanded the family business and started a dairy in 1918. Later, he passed it down to his son.

Cliff Bailey took to farming. The former state senator and county councilman said he wasn’t much of a student.

When he married his Snohomish High School sweetheart almost 70 years ago, Cliff, now 89, had to ask his mother for permission. But his younger bride, Rosemary, now 88, didn’t.

Back then, men had to be at least 21 to wed while the age for women was set at 18.

Unlike many Snohomish farm wives of her day, Rosemary Bailey didn’t learn to drive a tractor or milk a cow.

“Luckily, Cliff’s dad didn’t believe in women out in the barn,” she said.

The couple raised three sons, David, Dan and Don Bailey.

Now, Cliff and Rosemary’s sons run the farm with help from a few of their nine children and five grandchildren.

As milk prices shrank in the 1990s, the Baileys shut down the dairy and changed their business.

Today, it includes composting, raising Christmas trees, growing hay and silage corn and pasturing for heifers for other dairies.

There’s a pumpkin patch for a festival in the fall. From June to October, all kinds of produce, including cucumbers, peppers, green beans, sweet corn, raspberries and strawberries are grown. People can pick and buy the fresh food on the farm.

After years of writing $1.29 checks for pitchers of beer as a student at Walla Walla’s Whitman College, Don Bailey took a job at a Spokane bank. It wasn’t long before he ditched his suit and came home to his Carhartts.

“After I tried banking, the farm looked pretty good,” he said.

Now, the 61-year-old runs the composting business, which started in 1995. It turns about 15,000 tons of yard waste from nearby cities into compost every year. It is then sold and used on the farm instead of commercial fertilizer.

The business has adapted with changing weather, too. After a couple of dry, hot summers, the family started irrigating fields for the first time in decades.

The growing season is also a couple of weeks longer than it used to be, Don Bailey said.

His daughter, Annie Bailey Freeman, returned to Snohomish after college, too. She runs the u-pick vegetable stand and pumpkin patch with her sister, Elizabeth.

Unlike her grandmother, Annie started driving tractor at 10. Now, she even manages to put in straight rows of potatoes with a relic planter from the horse-drawn farming era.

“When you get it out of the barn every year, you just hope it works,” said Don Bailey, crediting his daughter’s knack for neat rows of crops.

Bailey Freeman, 31, is bringing up the family’s sixth generation on the farm. She plans to carry her 3-month-old daughter, Kate, on her back as she tends 350 newly planted apple trees this summer.

The orchard is the latest addition to the Bailey’s u-pick operation. More demand for locally-grown food has boosted business during the past 10 years, she said.

The farm now focuses on selling directly to those who come to pick produce from the fields.

“It’s a new experience for a lot of people,” Bailey Freeman said. “It’s kind of a treat.”

She often sees parents coming from cities and suburbs to show their children that vegetables, berries and even Christmas trees don’t come from the grocery store.

As shopping centers and housing developments continue to gobble up rural land to serve the county’s swelling population, the Bailey Farm will remain a place where people can learn about agriculture.

That’s important as many turn away from mass-produced food, instead opting for fresh, locally-grown eats, Cliff Bailey said. It’s a return to the way things used to be.

“That’s the future of farming,” he said.

Amy Nile: 425-339-3192; anile@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @AmyNileReports

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Everett mall renderings from Brixton Capital. (Photo provided by the City of Everett)
Topgolf at the Everett Mall? Mayor’s hint still unconfirmed

After Cassie Franklin’s annual address, rumors circled about what “top” entertainment tenant could be landing at Everett Mall.

Everett
Everett man sentenced to 3 years of probation for mutilating animals

In 2022, neighbors reported Blayne Perez, 35, was shooting and torturing wildlife in north Everett.

The Washington State University Snohomish County Extension building at McCollum Park is located in an area Snohomish County is considering for the location of the Farm and Food Center on Thursday, March 28, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Year-round indoor farmers market inches closer to reality near Mill Creek

The Snohomish County Farm and Food Center received $5 million in federal funding. The county hopes to begin building in 2026.

Dorothy Crossman rides up on her bike to turn in her ballot  on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Everett leaders plan to ask voters for property tax increase

City officials will spend weeks hammering out details of a ballot measure, as Everett faces a $12.6 million deficit.

Starbucks employee Zach Gabelein outside of the Mill Creek location where he works on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024 in Mill Creek, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Mill Creek Starbucks votes 21-1 to form union

“We obviously are kind of on the high of that win,” store bargaining delegate Zach Gabelein said.

Lynnwood police respond to a collision on highway 99 at 176 street SW. (Photo provided by Lynnwood Police)
Police: Teen in stolen car flees cops, causes crash in Lynnwood

The crash blocked traffic for over an hour at 176th Street SW. The boy, 16, was arrested on felony warrants.

The view of Mountain Loop Mine out the window of a second floor classroom at Fairmount Elementary on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
County: Everett mining yard violated order to halt work next to school

At least 10 reports accused OMA Construction of violating a stop-work order next to Fairmount Elementary. A judge will hear the case.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.