Ames Plantation

The 18,567-acre Ames Plantation, owned and operated by Trustees of the Hobart Ames Foundation under provisions of the will of Julia C. Ames, is located in Fayette and Hardeman Counties. Serving as an agricultural experiment station within the University of Tennessee system, the Ames Plantation is the location of intensive research efforts focusing on agriculture and natural resource management. Each February the Ames Plantation serves as the site of the National Championship Field Trials for all-age bird dogs. First held in 1896, this field trial has been conducted annually at the Ames Plantation since 1915.

The Ames Plantation property contains over two hundred nineteenth-century historic sites. The manor house, an antebellum mansion constructed in 1847 as part of Cedar Grove Plantation, is the architectural centerpiece of the property. In 1901 Hobart Ames purchased the plantation, one of the region's largest, and turned it into his own private rural retreat. The manor house furnishings are early twentieth-century and appear much as they did when the Ames family departed in 1950.

In addition, the Ames Plantation is home to a replica mid-nineteenth-century family farmstead typical of those that dotted the antebellum landscape. The “Farmstead” consists of restored and furnished log buildings and is utilized as a cultural resource education facility. Other historic sites of interest include the earliest marked burial site in Fayette County, dated January 7, 1827, and a restored one-room schoolhouse from 1900.