He changed agriculture in our state and around the world.

The Oliver Kelley Farm in Elk River honors its namesake’s contribution to farming.

“We portray farming in the 1860s and ’70s,” site manager Alyssa Olson said. “We tout ourselves for having hands-on experiences for our guests.”

Born in 1826 in Boston, 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. Bureau of Agriculture. Kelley felt a great need to bring farmers together to rebuild America.

“He felt farmers were it was a drown trodden profession,” Olson said.

In 1867, Kelley and six other men created the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, the country’s first nationwide farm organization.

“It was an organization that sought to allow farmers to band together to have some collective power,” Olson said. “Have some say on how their commodities and crops were brought to market. The Grange, I would say, paved the way for other agricultural organizations that exist today to help for the betterment of farmers.”

Kelley died in 1913 at the age of 87.