National Register Listing

Crogen, Ole, Farm District

4 mi. NW of Bottineau, Carbury & Bottineau, ND

The former Ole and Ingeborg Crogen farmstead is significant in its representation of a successful historic farmstead in Bottineau County, North Dakota. The high degree of integrity exhibited by the site and its individual buildings create a standard against against which future survey in the area should be evaluated. Its association with Norwegian settlement efforts should be explored to determine whether it may serve as a model for future study of ethnic agricultural practices.

Ole Crogen, born July 22, 1860, in Sondre Fron, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway, emigrated to Pope County Minnesota in 1867 with his parents, sisters, and a brother. Sources do not offer reasons why the Crogens left Norway and what attracted them to Minnesota, nor do records exist to explain Ole Crogen's move into North Dakota in 1886. Possibly, the availability of homestead land in 1860's Minnesota and 1880's North Dakota offered avenues to land possession which did not exist in the locations from which Crogen emigrated. Records do indicate, however, that Ole Crogen moved to a homestead in Pickering Township, one and one-half mile southeast of Carbury (The People of Bottineau County, p. 311; Minot Daily News, 11/14/1942; Bottineau Courant, 11/8/1942, p. 1).

By 1917 Crogen had amassed a farm of about 1000 acres and was considered one of the wealthiest Norwegian property owners in the county (Redal, p. 65). Agricultural surveys completed by the land grant college in North Dakota support Redal's observation. Those surveys recorded, among other things, changes in the relative number of farms of various sizes within individual counties of North Dakota from 19001925, the period of Crogen's greatest activity. In 1900, the bulk of Bottineau County farms (70+%) were of homestead size, 100-174 acres, while no inore than 3-4% of the total number of county farms consisted in 1000 acres or more...Middle-sized farms, those of 260-499 acres, while only representing 20% of the total in 1900, became the most common sized farm after eclipsing the percentage of homestead-size farms in 1907. From 1910 onward, the relative number of farms of the various sizes remained stable, with middle-sized farms representing nearly 50% of all county farms, larger farms (500-999 acres) comprising about 22% of all county farms, and the remaining consisting of extremely large or small farms. From 1900 the percent of all farms of 1000+ acres never reached above 5% (Willard and Fuller, p. 83, see Figure 53). Thus, Crogen's farm consisted in significant acreage within the county context from the years 1900-1925.

Within the same period, the number of large farms (defined as one section or greater in extent) throughout the entire state were more numerous than in Bottineau county. That is, Crogen's farm is larger than the norm in Bottineau County, but typical among farms throughout the state, especially of those in the southwest and south central part of the state (Willard and Fuller, p. 44, 58-65, Figures 32-38).

Through the buildings extant on the farmstead and supplemental documentary and photographic information, researchers today can obtain an accurate portrait of a leading farm during the first quarter of this century. The success of Crogen's operation is evidenced by his construction of the second dwelling in 1903 which replaced the homestead cabin for family use. Quick to follow was raising of the barn for livestock.

During the second decade of this century mechanical power began to replace horsepower in agricultural planting and harvesting. Farmers no longer needed barns to house large numbers of horses, but found the buildings a functional shelter for dairy cattle. Diversification of farm processes encouraged stock raising in addition to wheat production during the same time as conversion from animal to machine power. Crogen's farm followed this pattern which was a statewide phenomenon. Thus, the barn continued in use for many years and new buildings were added to the site: the garage, chicken coop, and silo. A slowdown of general farm practices during the 1930's coincided with Crogen's advancing age. He died in 1942, close to the time when the silo, pump house (bunkhouse), and homestead cabin were removed from the site due to a loss of utility. Remaining buildings served active farming purposes for the surviving family until retirement in 1970 (Conversation with Victor Crogen, 6/14/1986).

The grouping of buildings remain today remarkably intact after having served diverse agricultural needs for more than fifty years. As impressive is the lack of modernization through the addition of new buildings to the site or by alteration of existing ones. Such changes characterize nearly all historic farms today. The integrity of the Crogen farm is unmatched by any others formally recorded within the county and generally observed across much of the state.

Crogen was Norwegian, and settled within an area which as late as 1965 was composed of 95% Norwegians and their descendants. Norwegians comprise 50% of the 1965 households of Bottineau County, with the remainder of the county made up of (in order of relative size) Anglo-Americans, Germans, Anglo-Ontarians, and French (Sherman, pp. 58-59, 125). It is apparent that while the size of Crogen's farm was atypical, its ethnic association was typical within the county context. Two interesting features on the buildings may relate to the ethnic association. Within the gable of Crogen's barn are the pair of diamond shaped windows which occur with some frequency in areas of Norwegian settlement among barns built before 1930. Crogen's chicken coop, too, contains a door and window which share a common framing member, a an arrangement common among Norwegian immigrant folk housing (Nelson, 74-5). These features on the barn and hen house could be explained within the rubric of ethnic, popular, or folk building practices in future survey work.

The potential of the farm to illustrate ethnically associated characteristics, in addition to the historical bases of the property's importance and its high degree of physical integrity, serve to define the significance of the property.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1987.