Milk, Manure, and Mystery: The Rise and Fall of Carleton Farm

Before Carleton’s beloved Farm House existed, there was the Carleton farm. In the first decade of the 1900s, then-president Donald Cowling started noticing aesthetic issues with the state of Carleton’s campus. There was the Northfield dump, located where Spring Creek meets the Cannon River. Slight gusts of wind would make the campus smell rotten. This wasteland just brewed trouble – the site was known to serve as a shooting area for students to shoot scurrying wildlife.

To solve this unsavory issue, Cowling directed the college to purchase the dump and two farms north and east of campus in the 1910s. Shortly thereafter, a farm and dairy were established by the college. Farm House (the interest house) was built in the 1920s as living quarters for students who worked on the dairy farm (see Carleton College Voice newsletter). The college purchased Holstein cows, which supplied the dining halls with fresh milk, butter, and cream. The farm benefitted the surrounding community as well, producing hay, oats, corn, and other goods (see campushistory.sites.carleton.edu for the farm’s full history). Some portions of this land were designated as arboretum in 1926.

Despite its success, some hardships struck. A fire in 1926 burned down one of the barns, which cost the college $550,000 in today’s money to rebuild. In 1947, lightning strikes in killed several cows and caused another fire. In the end, the labor needed to maintain the farm, livestock, and surrounding property became too expensive. In the early 1960s, the herd was sold and the farm dissolved. Farm House, evidently, stayed standing as student housing. Even this old relic, cherished by over a century of students and rich with history, was recently torn down in 2024. After Carleton stopped farming the land itself, they leased it out to area farmers. As the college’s commitment to the Arboretum strengthened, portions were removed from farming and converted to natural habitat, a process that is still continuing today.

Despite the dissolution of Carleton’s dairy farm and the original Farm House, the college now has a vibrant and productive 1.5 acre student farm that currently supports 3-4 student interns. These interns help grow and sell food to Bon Appetit, the food service management company that provides dining services for the college. Under the mentorship of a farm manager, student farm interns bolster local food system connections. (Nancy Braker, Director of the Cowling Arboretum)

• Maxima Gomez-Palmer ‘26, for the Cole Student Naturalists