During the late 19th-century agricultural boom, immigrant German and Swiss farm families moved into northeastern Dallas County. Among the German families buying farms near Rowlett were Johann Christian Herfurth (1835-1914) and his wife, Anna Barbara Etter (1842-1925), whose son John Samuel Herfurth (1879-1958) found the Dallas County farmland and brought his parents there. The farm, purchased in 1908, originally comprised 151 acres and included a small three-room house. Around 1910, Herfurth added two rooms and a hallway to the original house, and a second major addition in 1918 created the basic airplane bungalow form it retains today. The house displays classic Craftsman-style exterior features, including strong horizontal lines, a low-pitched roof, deep eaves, and small panes in the upper window sashes, and evidence suggests the contractor relied on plans from Sears, Roebuck and Co. In the 1930s, as scientific land-management research expanded nationwide, J.S. Herfurth closely followed those developments and worked with Dallas County extension service agents to apply methods such as contour plowing and crop rotation. He was recognized locally as a farm conservationist and received the honor of triple-a farmer. Along with extensive cotton production, he also pursued animal husbandry, especially the breeding of horses and mules. J.S. Herfurth’s youngest son, Carl Leroy Herfurth, and his wife, Helen Hall, were the last family members to own and live on the homestead.