Sherburne History Center Blog

  The current weather conditions, drought, high heat, and lack or water reminds me of recent research into Sherburne County during the 1930s.   A time of worse weather conditions permeated throughout the county. Farming in Orrock Township after the difficult weather of the 1930s.  Notice the thick layer of sand sitting above the darker soil. In the years 1933 and 1934, the county suffered a major drought.   Farmers remembered the time as a “dust bowl.”   Some residents of Sherburne County remember this time as an end to farming in some areas of the county.   “The light, worn out soils took to the air and drifted like snow over the roads and onto front porches,” is the way historian Herb Murphy described it.   Some folklore of the times described Orrock Township as the “poison ivy capital of the world.”   Other tall tales suggested that “jack rabbits, when passing through Orrock Township, had to pack a lunch because there was nothing to eat.” ...

  Conservationist, 4-H advocate, and educator of children and adults; all terms that describe Ella Kringlund in Elk River.   An early promoter of Sherburne County and their natural resources, Ella Kringlund enthusiastically worked to boost conservation.   In the midst of Women’s History Month, it seems appropriate to make record of her life and her mission in Sherburne County. Ella Kringlund is long remembered for her work restoring the land that is today Sand Dunes State Forest.   Her memoirs record her efforts to plant a variety of pine trees in the area.   When her project began in the mid-1940s (and continuing until 1965) each season she organized a tree planting as a 4-H project.   In time, Ella Kringlund and her volunteers planted an estimate seven million trees.   Her efforts proved so successful, a Christmas tree thinning project also developed. By conservation standards in 2000, the trees she planted may not fit the accepted norms.   Ye...

A conservationist described the Sand Dunes State Forest as “A green dream come true.”  An area recovered from desolate, sandy soil to “a nature lover’s dream.”  An area in Orrock Township, at one time regarded as decent farmland.  With the coming drought in the 1930s the land became a farmer’s nightmare.  By 1940, farmers and Sherburne County residents described the land in Orrock Township as a wasteland, the epicenter of the poison ivy capital of the world, and the home of Zimmerman sand.  The land was so bad “the jack rabbits carried lunch bags as they hopped over the area.” Beginning in 1943, a transformation took hold and the resurrection of tillable land came about.  In no small part, this dramatic change resulted from efforts by Ray Clement, the Minnesota Forest Service and County conservationist Ella Kringland.    Farmers abandoned land or surrendered to tax forfeiture.   Clement petitioned the state legislature to set a...