The historic Valley Farm Stand at 591 Powerville Road in Boonton Township reopened on Friday, July 31, 2026, ending 26 years of silence at a roadside stand that served families just north of Denville for most of a century.
Morris County Commissioner Director Stephen Shaw and Boonton Township Mayor Bill Klingener cut the ribbon at the site. They were joined by Historical Society of Boonton Township President Bill Rixon, Township Administrator and county Commissioner Doug Cabana, and Jeff and Colleen Dowling, who rehabilitated the building and will run it as The Farmstand.
Oscar A. Kincaid Sr. built the stand in the mid-1920s as a refreshment stop where neighbors gathered over root beer. Kincaid moved into the dairy business in 1938, adding a walk-in cooler and turning the building into a “milk house” for his Hillside Dairy route. By World War II the family had returned to general farming, and the stand, then known as Valley Farm, sold sweet corn, tomatoes, peaches, apples, cider, Christmas trees and firewood. For years it ran on the honor system, with customers leaving payment in an unlocked cash box.
The stand closed after the final harvest in 2000, shortly before the death of Oscar A. Kincaid Jr., a former Boonton Township mayor and a founding member of the Morris County Agricultural Development Board. The board preserved 41 farms and more than 3,100 acres during his 17 years of service.
“While this is a modest farmstand, it has been part of the life of this community for nearly a century,” Shaw said.
The property is listed on both the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places, and the oldest section of the adjacent Kincaid home dates to about 1785. Since 2003 the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust Fund has awarded the Historical Society nearly $730,000 toward acquiring, stabilizing and restoring the site.
Photo courtesy of Morris County.
