Mercer Meadows Pole Farm: Where Nature Meets Tech History

Mercer Meadows Pole Farm: Where Nature Meets Tech History
Pole farm tech history - The Mercer Meadows Pole Farm is a great place for a nature break, offering lots of open space and wildlife. It's located on Cold Soil Road in Lawrence Township, and is popular with hikers, bikers and birders. But there's more than nature here - it features a display about a unique piece of New Jersey technology history.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, Mercer Meadows was home to a large short-wave radio broadcasting station that beamed signals across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. The AT&T system was housed atop 26 towers that were each 180 feet tall, which quickly became known as the Pole Farm.
The Pole Farm is part of the Mercer County Parks Mercer Meadows district, as well as the Lawrence Hopewell Trail.
In this video, we provide a closer look at The Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, why you should visit, and what to expect on your visit. This includes:
00:20 About Mercer Meadows Pole Farm
00:55 The Pole Farm - a Pioneering Piece of History
01:55 Why Birders Love the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm
02:40 Connections: Mercer Meadows and the Lawrence Hopewell Trail
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RESOURCES:
Lawrence Hopewell Trail
lhtrail.org/project/mercer-me...
Mercer Meadows Park District
www.mercercounty.org/departme...
Jersey Birder Hot Spot: Birding Guide at Mercer Meadows Pole Farm
jerseybirder.com/hot-spot-bir...
HISTORY OF THE POLE FARM:
The Pole Farm: Hopewell Valley History Project
hopewellhistoryproject.org/20...
Presentation by Lawrence Township Historian Dennis Waters
• AT&T's Pole Farm and t...
TRANSCRIPT
At Nature Break we share great places to encounter nature that fit into your busy day. The Mercer Meadows Pole Farm is a great example, offering lots of open space and wildlife that make it popular with hikers and birdwatchers. The park is located on Cold Soil Road in Lawrence Township, and is part of several local trail systems. It also offers a look at a unique piece of New Jersey technology history.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, Mercer Meadows was home to a large short-wave radio broadcasting station that beamed signals across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. The AT&T system was housed atop 26 towers that were each 180 feet tall, which quickly became known as the Pole Farm.
In December 1941 the Pole Farm managed a call from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By the mid-1960s ,the poles and antennas were made obsolete by advances in subsea telecom cables and communication satellites. AT&T shut down the site in 1975 and demolished all the buildings, and later sold the land to Mercer County.
The Pole Farm is one of the favorite locations for New Jersey's birding community. Local blog Jersey Birder describes it as "a magnet for all types of birds, changing season by season as they migrate up and down the Delaware River valley and the Atlantic coast flyway."
More than 200 species of birds have been seen at Mercer Meadows, including the northern harrier and endangered short-eared owl - a particular favorite for birders and photographers. Mercer Meadows has a bird blind as well as a raised observation platform
The Pole Farm is part of the larger Mercer Meadows park district, which was created by Mercer County in 2010, and includes the Maidenhead Trail, Reed Bryan Farm, the Mercer Equestrian Center, and Rosedale Park.
The Pole Farm is also a segment on the Lawrence Hopewell Trail which offers 19 miles of off-road paths for walking, biking and enjoying the outdoors, with the Pole Farm property serving as a connector between Village Park in Lawrence and Rosedale Park in Hopewell.