Estacada is home to two of the most endangered and degraded historic farm sites in Clackamas County.- the Lins farm and Palmateer Farm.
I am unsure whether the Palmateer farm site is abandoned or simply extremely neglected. The Palmateer’s Queen Anne Victorian house across the road from the barns appears vacant. The farm itself is strewn with trash and junked cars and a small house on the property (built in the 1980s) is engulfed in blackberries. The same blackberries provide an enormous barrier between the road and the barns on the property. Pictures of the site in 1991 show quite a bit of clutter and neglect even then.
John and Sarah Palmateer built their farm in 1853. At one time, their farm was acclaimed as “the finest in Clackamas County.” The prune dryer barn was built by the descendants of John and Sarah in 1917; the other barn on the property was built quite a bit later. The prune dryer is one of only two large prune dryer barns on the Clackamas County Historic Register.
The Palmateer farm remained in the Palmateer family through at least 1991 and was recorded as an Oregon Century Farm in 1957.
Resources
Palmateer Farm page from the Oregon Historic Resources Site database