Southern Minnesota Century Strong | October 2021 | C4
Bradley Wagner, Brian Wagner, pictured, and their siblings Robert Wagner and Carole Osborne own and operate the sesquicentennial Wagner farm, which dates back to 1871. (Carson Hughes/southernminn.com)
At 150, Wagner farm one of the oldest in Sharon Township
By CARSON HUGHES carson.hughes@apgsomn.com
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ntil this past year, the Wagner family had little idea how old and how significant their 150 year-old farm was to the history of Le Sueur County. The 200-acre parcel, 3 miles south of Rice Lake and 4 miles northwest of Le Center may appear unassuming at first — featuring a simple setup of a farmhouse, barn, quonset shed, and grain bins — but this small farm was one of the first settled in Sharon Township. The Wagner Family Farm may be even older than the state of Minnesota itself. In “History of the Minnesota Valley
Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota,” written in 1882 by Edward Druffield Neil, the Wagners’ ancestor Christian Schwarz is the first mentioned in the history of Sharon Township.
“Among the first to settle and make this their permanent home was Christian Shwar[z],” wrote Neil. “who with his family took a quarter section of section 23 in 1854, building one of the first houses of that locality.” While the Wagner family knew the farm had been in the family since the 1800s, it wasn’t until they researched the history of the farm that they discovered the land was settled four years before the Minnesota territory was granted statehood.
“It was crazy,” said Bradley Wagner. “Just when the research started leading back and back and back and then the one website for the county popped up and I started reading through it. When Christian’s name popped up actually being the first title, I was like ‘wow.’”
Bradley Wagner is the youngest of four siblings in the Wagner Family Trust which now owns the farm. Robert Wagner, Carol Osborne and Brian Wagner all manage the farm as well and were surprised to hear of the farm’s age.
“It was real interesting,” said Brian Wagner. “I didn’t think it went back thatA b far, but evidently it did.”
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