When visiting the property, W. Alton Jones was usually accompanied by several of his closest friends or business associates, often including Charlie Jones (no relation), chairman of Richfield Oil Co. Following an early breakfast, they would be out hunting pheasants or ducks by 8 a.m., followed by an afternoon of trout and bass fishing in the lakes (dug and diked by the Louttit family many years earlier), and then a late night card game. In later years, they would also shoot skeet at a range Jones had built near the Poor House, which he used as a guest house and where he added on a room to store his guns. (The building burned to the ground in 1968.) In addition to his family and friends, Jones was also accompanied on every visit by his valet, Tom, and because he always traveled to the area in his private plane, a pilot, co-pilot and steward would stay in The Nettles. Jones' wife Nettie usually arrived in a chauffeur driven car, so the chauffeur would stay for the weekend as well.  When Jones was not in residence, life at Hianloland Farm slowed considerably. Woodvale Farm traded in the Herefords for Aberdeen Angus cows brought from Jones' Maryland farm, and it maintained a small herd of white tailed deer and Japanese Sitka deer. The game farm also took on new life under Jones' direction, and at its peak it raised about 18,000 pheasants, 5,000 quail, 5,000 chukar partridges, 10,000 mallard ducks and 500 wild turkeys annually.

 Each month during our 50th Anniversary we will be featuring portions of the soon to be published book about the history of the W. Alton Jones Campus by Todd McLeish