The Colt Farm
Two bronze lions guard the stone barn built in the early 1900's to house the prize Jersey herd of Colonel Samuel P. Colt. Within the huge barn is an elegant, octagonal room, designed to display the trophies which the cows were to win. In 1916 the finishing touches were added to the barn. An artist, brought from Paris to paint in Colt's Bristol home, came to the farm and painted murals in Colt's barn office. That same year, Colonel Colt purchased the first Jerseys to occupy his magnificent barn. From these he hoped to breed the world's finest Jersey herd.

Colonel Colt felt that the public should be able to share in his enjoyment of the farm. He had an open invitation engraved in marble at the main entrance: "Colt Farm, Private Property, Public Welcome". On pleasant days families walked from the town of Bristol to picnic in the fields, dig clams and quahaugs in the Mill Gut salt marsh or fish for flounder, tautog and striped bass from the shore. Workers in white guided people through the magnificent stone barn, pointing out prize cows and offering glasses of fresh milk to the visitors. The mangers (feeding troughs) were scrubbed after each feeding, and the white-tile ceiling was kept mirror clean so that the entire herd of cows in their stanchions could be seen reflected in the ceiling. A visitor to the farm once wrote, "If I were the biggest liar in the world, I could not exaggerate the magnitude and the wonders of the Colt Farm".