by Scott DCamp
Reporter
It is technically 11 years overdue, but Sunrise Farm in Highlanding Township will be recognized as a century farm during the Pennington County Fair. A special recognition ceremony will be held following the 4-H Fashion Review at 1 p.m. on Sunday, July 19 in the Tri-Valley Bus Garage.
Andrew was born on Feb. 4, 1874, in Telemarken, Norway. He came to the United States at the age of 9 with his parents, John and Gunnar, and settled the northern Iowa town of Leland. It was there that he met Ellen Langerud. The two were married Sept. 25, 1901, in Leland, Iowa.
Andrew and Ellen had one son, Justin, who was 2 years when they homsteaded a quarter of land in Highlanding Township in 1904. As was the common custom in those days, they named the homestead property “The Sunrise Farm,” and later incorporated the sunrise theme into the siding of their home’s second story. At the time the property was homesteaded, the nearest town was Erie, which featured a blacksmith shop and general store.
Over the course of 111 years, the farm has stayed in family hands. Today, it consists of 800 acres made up of exactly five quarters of land in the shape of an X. The center quarter was homesteaded in 1904, when reservation land was made available for purchase. The east and west quarters were purchased in the 1920s, and the south and north quarters were purchased in the 1960s.
Andrew, along with wife Ellen, farmed the land from 1904 until his death in 1941.
Justin, the only son of Andrew and Ellen, was born in 1902. He farmed with his wife Selma until his death in 1953.
Orlin Hanson, the only son of Justin and Selma Hanson, was born in August 1922. Along with his wife Marcella, he had two sons, Dale and Dean Hanson, and farmed until 1991, when the family got out of farming and rented the land. In 1967, Orlin took a job at the Goodridge Farmers Co-op Creamery – a job he would hold until he passed away in August 2004.
Dale is married to Dawn (Hegge) Hanson and together they have six children: Ben Hanson, Clifton (Catherine), Hanson, Andrew (Kerin) Hanson, Brittany (Zane) Hawk, Tiffany (Brian) Barta, and Rachel (Drew) Jaeger. Brittany was the first girl to be born in the Hanson family in over 100 years. Dale joined his father at the creamery in September 1976 and has worked there ever since. He noted that the creamery bought milk until 2002, but now it is a creamery in name only. Dale has also served on the Goodridge Area Fire and Rescue since 1982, serving as fire chief from 1986-2013.
Dean still resides at the original homestead in a home built in 1967. A house built by Andrew Hanson in 1905 and a barn built in 1919 with milking stalls for 16 cattle still stand. He works as a substitute cleaner at Lincoln High School and helps out on the farm and at the creamery as needed.
Ben, the oldest son of Dale and Dawn, resumed farming a portion of the family’s land three years ago. In additoin to farming, he is a full-time English teacher in the Red Lake Falls School District, teaching seventh, eighth and 11th grade English.
The remainder of the land is rented by his cousin Ross Hegge, who has been a full-time farmer and Pioneer Seed dealer since 2009 after previously working as an agronomist in Hallock. Hegge also took over his father Ron’s farm and farms a total of 2,100 acres overall.
Agriculture as an industry has seen substantial changes over the past century and the Sunrise Farm mirrors many of those changes. Horses eventually gave way to tractors and dairy farming eventually gave way to crop farming. Dale said his parents milked cows until 1968. That year, the pasture land was broken up and the cattle were sold. Today, the primary crops are wheat and soybeans.