On a cool summer morning at the Wagner farm, the birds chirp, the chipmunks frolic and the construction machinery beeps.
It’s the persistent beep of houses, townhomes and condos going up all around the 150-year-old farm, and owner Charles Wagner knows he can’t hold out much longer.
“It can’t stay,” he said. “Development won’t let it stay.”
But for now, the nearly 48-acre Chaska farm is the place the Wagners call home. It’s a place the Wagner family has been calling home since the state of Minnesota was born in 1858.
This year, the Wagners, along with 89 other registered sesquicentennial farm owners across the state will be recognized at the Minnesota State Fair and honored for their support of Minnesota agriculture.
Family farm
On Feb. 8, 1858, Charles’ great great-uncle Franz Wagner registered 160 acres with the U.S. land office in Forest City. According to Charles’ records, he paid $1.25 an acre for his purchase.
The farm included big woods and lake shore on Hazeltine Lake. For years, it was where the Wagner family raised Jersey and later Angus cattle.
“They used to cut ice blocks out of the lake to keep the milk cold until they could take it to the creamery,” Charles relayed.
In 1918, Charles’ great-grandmother Virginia registered the farm - then called Hazeltine Lake Jersey Farm - at the Carver County Courthouse.
Located along Audubon Road, the Wagner farm has remained in the family since that time. However, there were occasions when the family nearly lost it.
Charles recalled when his grandfather “decided he didn’t need to pay taxes.”
“He was in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s,” Charles explained. Luckily, there was a provision in the law that mandated next of kin be notified before the sheriff’s sale.
“My father and uncle bought it the last day of the sheriff’s sale,” said Charles.
Land offers
The farm has been passed down through four generations of Wagners, shrinking to almost a quarter of its original size over time.
Charles said his dad was hounded relentlessly to sell his land for what would eventually become Hazeltine National Golf Club.
“He would get home from work and there would be a guy sitting on the hood of his car every night,” said Charles.
His dad eventually sold the western half of his acreage for $1,000 an acre – a hefty sum in those days. The property was later divided again, with Charles’ aunt selling the southern portion.
Almost 48 acres remain of the farm today. Thirty-three of those acres are still used to grow crops – mostly corn and soybeans – though Charles has nothing to do with that.
“We stopped him a long time ago from going that direction,” said wife, Joan.
Instead, Charles and Joan are content to grow flowers and nurse a small vegetable garden currently boasting a healthy crop of bright red tomatoes.
In 2002, Charles completely gutted the farm house, including the original home, which now serves as their kitchen. “I wanted to live here,” said Charles. “It’s part of a dream.”
Charles straightened the tilting house, added new steel siding and converted the heating and plumbing. And along the way he had at least one surprise.
“I found a New York Times newspaper in the walls,” he said. “It was dated 1896 and included an article about how the fighting in Afghanistan has to stop. I guess things don’t change much.”
But change is evident all around the Wagner farm.
Today, it is an island of solitude in a sea of suburban development. Autumn Woods surrounds the property on the north, west and south side while the new Chanhassen Liberty Heights development sits to the east.
A sign in the middle of their long dirt driveway reads “No Trespassing.”
“That’s for the solicitors,” Joan explained.
Much like his dad experienced, Charles is also fielding offers from developers ready to convert his farmland to neighborhoods. He says he’s holding out for the right price.
According to the Carver County Geographic Information System Web site, the Wagners’ land is worth $4.5 million. But Charles knows former neighbors who got $300,000 an acre for their land.
“If someone has to sell it, I’d rather it was me,” he said. “I don’t want it to be a burden on (my family).”
The last Wagner
Charles believes he will be the last Wagner to live at the family farm. He moved his own family there, including his wife and three daughters Kaylee, 18, Pauline, 17 and Clairisa, 10, six years ago. Though the ladies in his life questioned his decision, for Charles, living on the family farm was a dream he shared with his ancestors.
“I love living here,” he said. “It’s been a series of people’s dreams. I’m just a part of it.”
Charles remembers coming to the farm from their home in Richfield as a young child.
“I remember sitting on my grandfather’s lap and listening as he told me how we were going to go fox hunting,” recalled Charles.
Later in life, he continued to visit the farm with his dad. “Dad was born here,” said Charles. “He grew up here.”
Together they cut down dead wood, found old arrowheads and threw potatoes in the root cellar. Now those days are gone.
The view from the granary and the old Chaska brick smoker out behind the farm house is no longer trees, but houses.
“I used to take it for granted, the space you have,” said Joan. “I don’t anymore.”
As the Wagners look toward their eventual retirement and confront the possibility of selling the farm, they are nostalgic.
“People fought for (the farm),” said Charles. “There’s a sense of pride in being able to live here. In being the last one.”
-Mollee Francisco, staff writer
Sesquicentennial farms
What: A display recognizing 90 family farms in continuous ownership for 150 years or more.
When: Through Labor Day
Where: Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul at the Cattle Barn Moo Booth (corner of Judson Avenue and Stevens Street)