Marcella Schumacher Pendall, daughter of early area settlers, envisioned Schumacher Farm as a living history museum of early agricultural life. Schumacher Farm Park began in 1978 when she donated 40 acres of the Schumacher homestead to Dane County as a conservancy. In 1986, she established the Friends of Schumacher Farm to create and operate a living history farm museum and also left a trust account to provide major funding for the Friends' activities. Schumacher Farm consists of a triad of Dane County, the Friends, and the Trust, the first such collaboration in the county park system. The goals of all three units are preservation, restoration, and education about early rural lifeways for future generations. The park combines cultural history with the natural environment that supported early local settlement and shows how a farm born of prairie operated during the transition from horse-drawn machinery and kerosene lamps to mechanized farming and electricity.