“The Bailey Family
participated in the design
of Bailey's Arbor and looks
forward to seeing this
community develop in
and amongst the large
open spaces, arboretum,
and neighborhood gardens.”
- Gordon Bailey

Like people, land has a history. Up until the 1960’s, the land that is now Bailey’s Arbor was a family farm. The Leroy Schilling family ran a large Holstein dairy farm on the south side of Bailey Road, and kept much of their remaining acreage in grassy cover under the old United States Department of Agriculture soil bank program.

In 1960, the Schilling family sold the land to Gordon Bailey Nursery, Inc. who gradually converted the farmland and soil bank into nursery production.

Bailey Nursery — a family-owned business since 1905 — began as a fruit, vegetable and ornamental plant farm on just 80 acres in Newport. Over the next century it gradually evolved to include wholesale growing, an orchard operation, a dairy operation, a retail nursery, and a landscape business.

Since 1957, Bailey Nursery has been strictly a wholesale business with production distributed throughout the northern two-thirds of the United States, Canada, and Alaska. Family owned and operated for four generations, it looks forward to celebrating its centennial in 2005. More information is available on their website, www.baileynursery.com.

Bailey Nursery and the Schilling acres have produced thousands of spruce, pine, arborvitae, and juniper, as well as many container-grown shade trees and ornamental shrubs. These plants have helped beautify much of the Upper Midwest — from natural spaces to residential landscapes — and have been used extensively throughout Bailey’s Arbor.