So Minnesota: Oliver Kelley Farm
He changed agriculture in our state and around the world.
The Oliver Kelley Farm in Elk River honors its namesake’s contributions to agriculture.
“We represent farming in the 1860s and 1870s,” said Site Manager Alyssa Olson. “We pride ourselves on providing hands-on experiences for our guests.”
Born in Boston in 1826, Kelley moved to the Minnesota frontier to become a farmer. After the Civil War, Kelley traveled the country as a clerk for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Kelley felt a great need to bring farmers together to rebuild America.
“He felt it was a lost profession for farmers,” Olson said.
In 1867, Kelley and six other men founded the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, the country’s first nationwide agricultural organization.
“It was an organization that wanted to allow farmers to come together to gain some collective power,” Olson said. “They wanted to have a say in how their goods and crops were brought to market. I would say the Grange paved the way for other agricultural organizations that exist today that are helping to improve the situation for farmers.”
Kelley died in 1913 at the age of 87.
