Every April, a line of trucks and SUVs turns off the highway and rolls down Pine Log Road toward a gate on a working farm. Inside, eighty-some vendors have spent two days setting up under tents, arranging vintage dressers and reclaimed porch swings and jars of homemade jam against a backdrop of open pasture, a weathered upright silo, and a barn that looks like it was built for a magazine spread. People line up for photos in front of that barn. Most of them have no idea it was still milking cows thirty years ago.
That's the part of the Pine Log Vintage Market story that gets skipped in the usual roundup of "things to do in Brookland this spring." The barn isn't a prop. Neither is the silo. They're the actual working structures of a Grade A dairy that ran on this exact ground for more than four decades, and the market that draws thousands of shoppers now exists because two brothers decided their family's history was worth sharing rather than tearing down.
The Farm Was Already Here
The Historic Head Dairy Farm sits at 922 County Road 762, better known locally as Pine Log Road, in Brookland. It's been in the same family since April 1952, when R. M. and Dorothy Head bought the land on Crowley's Ridge and eventually built it into a 270-acre operation. That same month, the Jonesboro Sun ran a story with the headline "Prize Texas Dairy Herd Moved To Craighead County."
The herd in question was a group of Jersey cattle shipped from Abilene, Texas, to Northeast Arkansas by train, in five boxcars. It wasn't a routine purchase. At the time, that herd was ranked among the best Jersey herds in the country. The Heads first kept the cattle on a farm west of Goobertown while they finished improvements to the Brookland property, then moved everything once the new barns and pastures were ready.
How Good Was This Herd, Really
Here's the number that puts it in perspective. In 1953, part of that same Jersey herd was sold to the dairy department at what was then Arkansas State College, now Arkansas State University, for $45,000. That's not a typo, and it wasn't a small sum in 1953. It's the kind of price tag that only makes sense if the cattle were genuinely elite stock, not just a working farmer's herd.
R. M. Head didn't stop at running his own operation. He worked with other dairy farmers on Crowley's Ridge to help establish Grade A dairies across the region. At the peak of that era, more than 100 dairy farms operated on the ridge. Most are gone now, though you can still spot the abandoned block dairy barns scattered across the countryside if you know what you're looking for.
A rough timeline of what happened on this land:
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1952 | R.M. and Dorothy Head buy the farm; Jersey herd arrives from Texas by rail |
| 1953 | Part of the herd sold to Arkansas State College's dairy department for $45,000 |
| 1962 | Milk begins being bottled on-site and sold via local routes in Brookland, Goobertown, and Jonesboro |
| 1994 | Dorothy Head milks the last cow on October 15 |
| Present | The farm operates as pasture and hay land, with the original barns and silo still standing |
The Barn You're Standing Next To Is the Original
This is the detail that changes how the market feels once you know it. The Grade A dairy barn, the storage barns, and the upright silo that give Pine Log its postcard look aren't reconstructions or rustic set dressing brought in for atmosphere. They were built during the farm's active decades and never left. Milk was bottled at the farm itself starting in 1962 and distributed through routes that covered Brookland, Goobertown, and Jonesboro, the same towns whose residents now drive out to shop the market every spring.
The dairy operation didn't wind down quietly, either. Dorothy Head, the woman who bought the land with her husband in 1952, was the one who milked the farm's last cow on October 15, 1994. Today the property functions as pasture and hay ground, along with some managed timber, but the structures from its working years are still doing double duty as the market's backdrop.
Why the Market Exists at All
This is where the story stops being about cattle and starts being about the family that stayed on the land. David and Robert Head, R.M. and Dorothy's sons, own the farm now. The idea for a vintage market took shape after David's wife, Cheryl, attended the War Eagle Craft Fair in Northwest Arkansas and thought the rolling hills of the family farm could support something similar. She brought the idea back to the Head family.
The timing mattered. The push to actually build the market came after Robert Head's wife, Tina, passed away, and the family needed something to work toward during the grieving period that followed. Cheryl and David, their children and grandchildren, Robert and his own children and grandchildren, and a wide circle of extended family and friends all pitched in to lay out the details. What started as one woman's idea after a trip to another state's craft fair became a shared project built around loss and the need to gather.
That's a different origin story than most seasonal markets get. This one wasn't planned by an event company or a tourism board. It came out of a family looking for a reason to be together, using land they already owned and buildings they'd already spent decades maintaining.
What to Expect if You Go
The market runs as an outdoor, rain-or-shine event, so weather doesn't cancel it and refunds aren't issued for a rainy Saturday. There's no electricity available on-site, though vendors are allowed to run quiet generators. In keeping with the farm setting, the whole event opens and closes by the ringing of a dinner bell, a small detail that fits a market built on a working farm rather than a fairground.
A few practical notes worth knowing before your next visit:
- Admission runs around $5 per person, with children 12 and under typically free
- The grounds are grass and open field, not pavement, so comfortable shoes matter more than they would at an indoor show
- Food trucks are on-site throughout the weekend
- The market typically runs three days in late April, Friday through Sunday, with Friday hours starting in the early afternoon and weekend hours starting in the morning
- Vendor lineups and exact 2027 dates are usually posted on the market's own site as spring approaches
If you've already been, you've probably walked past the silo without a second thought. If you haven't, it's worth putting on next spring's calendar, not just for the shopping but for the chance to stand on ground that's been continuously farmed by one family since before Arkansas had an interstate highway running through it.
Ground Worth Knowing
Brookland doesn't have a long list of landmarks that draw people in from Jonesboro and beyond, but Pine Log Farm is one of the real ones. It's not a repurposed strip mall or a new development dressed up to look historic. It's the same 270 acres the Head family bought in 1952, still owned by the same family, still carrying the same barns that once housed one of the best Jersey herds in the country. The market is new. The ground underneath it has been telling this story for over 70 years.
If you're already part of this community, that's the kind of local detail worth having in your back pocket, whether you're giving a friend the tour or just want to see the place differently the next time you're standing in line for a photo by that barn. And if you're the kind of person who's curious about what else makes a place like Brookland tick, from its older farm properties to its newer neighborhoods, I'm always glad to talk through what's happening around town. You can reach out to Kay L Doss any time you want a local's read on the area, no pressure, no obligation, just a conversation.
