The Obenshain Family are fourth-generation caretakers for three family farms. Oaknoll Farms in Blacksburg, VA comprises both Oaknoll Farm, which is a small farm and homestead on Prices Fork Road, and the larger Thompson Place Farm. The Thompson Place Farm is a 500-acre farm off Keisters Branch Road and Long Shop Road in Montgomery County. The majority of that farm is also under conservation easement and is the site of the New River watershed’s first stream bank and wetland bank, which will enhance and protect water quality in perpetuity.
In addition to Oaknoll Farms in Blacksburg, Blue Ridge Hall Farm in Botetourt County is still owned by the family. Obenshains have lived in the large white farm house, formerly a stage coach stop, and farmed the 140 acres there since 1840. That farm is designated as a Century Farm and is protected as farmland and forest under a conservation easement.
The Thompson Place property was added to the farm over a period of several years. The first 200 acres of the farm was purchased in the early 1950s. Over the years, Sam Obenshain bought small tracts and larger acreage any time property adjacent to the farm came on the market, eventually expanding the farm to its current 500 acres.
Currently, the majority of the farms are rented to local farmers for beef cattle and haying operations. The tradition of caring for the land continues today with 13 Obenshain family members owning and overseeing the farm. In the past 15 years, the family has installed several conservation practices on the farm, fenced out its creeks and wetlands and placed a conservation easement in 2015 on the farm’s 400 contiguous acres, including the stream and wetland bank.
For information on the Thompson Place Farm Stream and Wetland Bank, please click here.