Along Walnut Creek at the edge of the backlands prairie, this land was originally home to Tonkawa Indians. In the fall of 1844, Texas Ranger Lt. James O. Rice, an original Austin settler, laid claim to 1,280 acres at the northward crossing of the creek, including the site of Pioneer Farms. Eight years later, Frederick and Harriet Bachman Jourdan settled on part of that acreage with their eight children and eventually built a 2,000-acre farm. The first settlers, many of them migrants from eastern states like the Jourdans, faced threats from outlaws and marauders. Beginning in the 1850s, immigrants from Germany and other European countries settled nearby and founded Dessau, Pflugerville, and other towns. After the Civil War, freedmen farmed around the nearby Sprinkle community, and for a time in the 1870s the Chisholm Trail crossed the area. In 1956, the Jourdan grandchildren, Laura and Eugene Giles, donated the core of their ancestors' property to the Heritage Society of Austin for a park honoring early settlers. Dedicated in 1975, the site became a museum with an architecturally diverse collection of historic buildings, including some of the oldest surviving in Texas, many moved there to save them from demolition and preserve them for future generations.