Landowner Stories - Ola Williams Hendren & Hendren Farm

Ola Williams Hendren grew up near the banks of the Mitchell River on a farm with her family, seven miles, as the crow flies, from the river’s headwaters. She has lived on the farm all her life, now residing in a converted tobacco barn. Ola has hiked every step of the rugged terrain, from fields to forest, from barn to riverbank and she loves it all.

In her mid-seventies, Ola began the battle of her life – to save her farm from becoming “just another subdivision.” She was up to the task, and with the help of the Piedmont Land Conservancy, she achieved her goal.

The Mitchell is not just any river. It is Ola’s river. “This land is precious to me, as it was to my parents. I want this area to remain in its beautiful state,” she declared. For at least 10 years, Hendren and others who live along the Mitchell fought development along the river. They sought to give the river a designation that would help protect it from future development.

The state designated the Mitchell River as Outstanding Resource Waters, a designation given only to the most pristine waters. A fisherman’s dream, the headwaters of the Mitchell is home to a pure southern strain of native brook trout.

In 1997, Ola, at age 83, began to work on a conservation agreement with the Piedmont Land Conservancy on her 85 acre homeplace. Her land includes almost a mile on the river and two tributaries. For Old, the agreement forever guarantees that her land will remain the way she wants.

The remaining interest in the property has been donated to the N.C. Agricultural Foundation, Inc. of North Carolina State University. It will be used as a site for farm education. Ola’s farm is just one part of a larger effort undertaken by the Piedmont Land Conservancy to protect 10,000 acres in the Mitchell River watershed.

And Ola, with her beloved 85 acre farm, completed the first easement of that larger project. Her persistence has helped to preserve the beauty of her land and given momentum to the 10,000 acre goal.