Craig Askins
Many Delaware County farms have disappeared into development in recent years. There are not many farmers around today like Craig Askins. Craig was born in 1909 in Oklahoma. His parents came to Ohio in 1920 and bought a 130-acre farm at the west end of Powell Road. The family moved into the farm’s beautiful red brick house, built sometime during the Civil War. Craig and his wife Maguerite remained on the farm and would eventually raise their family of four children there. In the 1930’s Askins used sturdy Belgian horses to plow his fields of corn, wheat and hay until 1942 when he bought his first tractor. He raised chickens and dairy cattle, switching from Guernsey cows to Holsteins, which produced more pounds of milk per cow. In 1973 he retired from dairy farming and began raising Belgian and Morgan horses as a hobby. He also collected and restored old farm wagons and equipment. He would frequently appear in area parades with one of his beautifully restored wagons pulled by his team of Belgian horses.
Besides farming for over 60 years, Craig served as Liberty Township Trustee, a bus driver for the Liberty Union Local Schools (Olentangy) for 25 years, was a charter member of the Delaware County Farm Bureau, and a member of the Powell Methodist Church and Powell-Liberty Historical Society. He died in 1997 at age 86. Askins had sold 20 acres of his farm for the New Hope Church to be built. The Columbus Zoo bought the rest of his acreage, including the one-room Bovee School, which is now part of the African exhibit at the Zoo.
