Abandoned farm. Two words guaranteed to get my attention. I was doing some Googling (still one of the dumbest words in our dictionary) and came across the Bend in the River Park, home to the refurbished Graves Farm that dates to the late 1800s. It’s about 60ish miles north of the Twin Cities near Rice and so worth the drive.
Here’s the link to my complete Facebook photo album:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=chad.smith.75685&set=a.4145186392208432
This is the part of the article where I run through the history of a particular site. However, I just can’t find much in the way of available information.
The Park map says, “Little is known of the individuals who acquired territorial lands grants for this property before Minnesota’s statehood in 1858, but by the 1800’s it was a working farm owned by George Wolhart. Its most recent caretakers, the Graves Family that gives the site its name, bought the place in 1912.
The Graves family then maintained it through many decades, with the property sold to Benton County in 2002.
According to the sign on the refurbished Graves House, the structure replaced a log house that was first built on the property. The house still contains the original doors, molding, tongue-and-groove flooring.
By the way, the place wasn’t just a working farm. Carlton Graves used the entire basement for his veterinary practice. Do you think the guy was a busy person?
The house might have been a little different than what some people expected to see in the country back then. According to the description on the sign, the two-story, lap-sided house was slimmer and more vertical, such as those placed tightly together on urban housing lots. The house was built in the Queen Anne style, a long-popular style commonly seen on Minnesota farms of the period.
There are so many interesting buildings to see on the old site. I’d encourage you to hit the road this summer and make it one of your adventure stops!
