engineering

Gordon Fox Ranch

Gordon Fox Ranch is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gordon Fox Ranch rather than just read about it. In short: The Gordon Fox Ranch is a historic silver fox farming property at 860 West Broadway (United States Route 2) in Lincoln, Maine. Operating from about 1924 to 1940, the property is the best-preserved of a significant number of fox farms established by brothers Frank and Fred Gordon in Lincoln.

Key takeaways

Gordon Fox Ranch belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gordon Fox Ranch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gordon Fox Ranch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Gordon Fox Ranch is a historic silver fox farming property at 860 West Broadway (United States Route 2) in Lincoln, Maine. Operating from about 1924 to 1940, the property is the best-preserved of a significant number of fox farms established by brothers Frank and Fred Gordon in Lincoln. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

Description and history The Gordon Fox Ranch is located in a rural area of western Lincoln, on the south side of West Broadway. The property is more than 9 acres (3.6 ha) in size, of which less than 2 acres (0.81 ha) were ever cleared, the rest being forested. A cluster of buildings, some historic and some not, are set a short way south of the road. Nonhistoric buildings include a 1950s garage and a house built in 2006. Behind the garage stands a three-story square wood-frame tower, which has inward-sloping sides through two levels, with a vertically walled third level with windows in each face. Across the driveway from the garage stands a historic ranch house (set in front of the modern house); it is a 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame building, with a saltbox profile distinctive to the Gordon's fox ranching operations. This house was built in 1924. The property also includes a nearly-complete berm, surrounding a space that would originally have been fenced off as the space where the foxes were raised. Behind the houses stands a small wood-frame structure that originally served as the ranch office. When built, it was originally attached to the observation tower, but was separated in order to effect repairs on both structures. It is believed to be the only known surviving office building from one of these ranching operations. Silver fox pelts were long a highly valued fur, significantly exceeding in value that of beaver. Ranching of the animals was made possible by the successful breeding of them in captivity on Prince Edward Island in the 1890s, and ranching operations gradually spread afterward. In the 1920s brothers Fred and Frank Gordon (of Lincoln and Bangor) purchased numerous tracts of land in Lincoln and other communities of northern New England, and established ranching operations on a standardized plan. In Lincoln the brothers are known to have built at least ten such operations between 1924 and 1926, when their enterprise went bankrupt. The properties included a small house for the caretaker to live in, a fenced area for the foxes, and an observation tower from which the behavior of the animals could be monitored. This particular farm was probably used until about 1940 for fox farming, by a variety of owners.

See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Penobscot County, Maine

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gordon Fox Ranch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gordon Fox Ranch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gordon Fox Ranch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gordon Fox Ranch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gordon Fox Ranch

In research: Gordon Fox Ranch appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gordon Fox Ranch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gordon Fox Ranch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1924, Buildings and structures in Penobscot County, Maine, Farms on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gordon Fox Ranch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Gordon Fox Ranch” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Gordon Fox Ranch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gordon Fox Ranch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gordon Fox Ranch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gordon Fox Ranch in simple terms?

Why does Gordon Fox Ranch matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gordon Fox Ranch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gordon Fox Ranch.