Dairy farming exploration was too good to pass up. It’s been a while since this old fart got out and did some urbex, either in the city or out in the country. Hat tip to Shelby Staye, an urbexing Rockstar, for the tip! You can find her stuff on pages like Abandoned Places in Minnesota on Facebook.
This was an interesting exploration for me, and not just because I grew up working on my uncle’s dairy farm. While I do love dairy farming and exploring, this was unusual because a car was parked in the driveway when I got there. That’s never happened when I’ve been out exploring before, so I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
Finally, I got my nerve up and walked up to the place and found an older gentleman there cutting up some branches. Got my courage up and asked if I could take pictures of the old buildings there. It was a remarkable opportunity because I got a little history of the place.
The family was full-on into dairy farming back in the day. This gentleman (who I won’t name for the sake of anonymity) inherited the place from his mother-in-law, who sounded like a family matriarch. He and his wife lived on the property for a couple of years but their well wound up drying out, so they moved to a different location.
As you can tell from the pictures and short video, it’s sat there unused for a long time. However, Mother Nature hasn’t been as hard on the building as vandals have. I could hear the sadness in the guy’s voice as he described all the damage to what once was a stately old building it used to be.
The dairy barn is long gone from the property. The only other buildings on the property are an old metal building and a crumbling wooden shed. However, they may not be there for long. The owner said his wife wants to build a house and spend their golden years on the property, so it may not be there for long.
After that, it was off for a short drive over the Myrback Bridge and pulling up to the old Myrback School. I’ve been Googling a lot of different things to try and get some history of the Myrback School, but I can’t find any more than very small snippets. I do know at one point in its history, one of the teachers that worked there over time bought the school building. There are books available about those old schools in Wright County, but none of them are online.
It was nice to get out and explore again. With everything that’s been going on here in the Twin Cities since early this summer, I felt the need to stay closer to home. Good to see the rest of Minnesota again!
Here’s a link to my Facebook album with all the pictures:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=chad.smith.75685&set=a.3647115205348889
Here’s quick video I put together.. .didn’t have enough time to film everything I wanted. Sun goes down pretty quickly these days!