Dalrymple Farm
In 1874, James P. Power, land commissioner for the Northern Pacific Railroad, purchased 11,520 acres about 20 miles west of Fargo. The land was purchased for General George W. Cass (President of the Northern Pacific) and Benjamin P. Cheney, a director of the railroad. The Cass-Cheney farm became the first Bonanza Farm. Cass and Cheney hired Oliver Dalrymple to manage their new farmland. The photograph below is enlarged and cropped form a stereoview taken by F. J. Haynes in 1877, when he had a studio in Moorhead. As you can see, wheat farming was labor intensive.
Dalrymple had become known as the Minnesota wheat king with his large wheat farming operation near Cottage Grove in Washington County, Minnesota. Dalrymple had graduated from Yale Law School and had come to Minnesota in 1856 to practice law. He invested in a 3,000 acre farm which he farmed very successfully until 1874. Unfortunately, he lost his farming profits by speculating in the grain trade. General George Cass had come to know Dalrymple during his "wheat king" days as a good farmer who used the most advanced farming techniques.
Dalrymple's contract with Cass provided for gradual acquisition of the land, an option he exercised. This contract enabled Dalrymple to expand his holdings to about 100,00 acres in the late 1890's.
According to information on the back of the stereoview pictured above, the farm had 4,000 acres under cultivation in 1877. The farm contained three sets of buildings, each containing a house, stock barns, granary, etc.
The postcard to the upper right shows the original Dalrymple House, built in 1876. It is said to be the first frame house between Fargo and Bismarck, ND.
The image above is from a stereoview card taken between 1876-1879 when F. J. Haynes (the photographer) had his studio in Moorhead. The scene is described as "Plow Teams, Dalrymple, Dakota Territory, 20 miles west from Fargo on farm of 45,000 acres."
In 1874, James P. Power, land commissioner for the Northern Pacific Railroad, purchased 11,520 acres about 20 miles west of Fargo. The land was purchased for General George W. Cass (President of the Northern Pacific) and Benjamin P. Cheney, a director of the railroad. The Cass-Cheney farm became the first Bonanza Farm. Cass and Cheney hired Oliver Dalrymple to manage their new farmland. The photograph below is enlarged and cropped form a stereoview taken by F. J. Haynes in 1877, when he had a studio in Moorhead. As you can see, wheat farming was labor intensive.
As a land speculator, Oliver Dalrymple was as enormously successful as he was as a farmer. The Dalrymple land, near Fargo and the Northern Pacific mainline, has a rapid increase in price. Dalrymple, who bought land in 1876 and after for prices ranging from 40¢ to $5 per acre found his land worth $20-$25 per acre by 1884.
After the dissolution of the Cass-Dalrymple partnership in 1896, the Dalrymples divided their land into ten units. After Oliver Dalrymple died in 1908, his sons (William and John S.) continued to operate the farm until 1917. They concluded that the interest on the proceeds of selling the farm would be greater than the profits from operating the farm. Accordingly, they began so sell parcels of the farm. The farm depression of the 1920's, however, resulted in many repossessions of the land sold and thus forced the Dalrymples back into farming. In 1955, John S. Dalrymple still owned about 25,000 acres.
The photograph of the Dalrymple Farm Crew belwo was taken by J.H. Hamlin, a photographer from Casselton, Dakota, in the 1880s.
