The historic buildings here were once part of a successful coastal dairy empire operated by the extended Steele family, which ran numerous dairies along the coast beginning in the 1860s and called their land "cow heaven." During the Civil War, the Steele brothers auctioned a giant 20-foot round of cheese to benefit the Union war effort, and President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant received slices. In the 1880s, Effie Steele and her husband, Edwin Dickerman, built their farmhouse and outbuildings here, including a cow barn constructed with timber salvaged from a storm-wrecked local wharf. Today, the cow barn serves as the visitor center for the Marine Education Center, the horse barn as a theater and classroom, and the smaller two-story creamery building as the volunteer headquarters and park office.