“Turner County Poor Farm”

Before Social Security, old age assistance, and other social safety nets, poor farms throughout the United States provided a place for those suffering through desperate times. The Turner County Poor Farm housed primarily aged and disabled men, although there were several single indigent women and, during the height of the Great Depression, families with small children.

In 1897, the County Commissioners paid $13 an acre for two quarter-sections of land. A large two-story wood-frame house was built at a cost of $2,295, and the rest of the 160 acres was farmed. The first lodgers moved in on April 4, 1899. During the 1930’s, the house accommodated nearly twenty lodgers as well as the Superintendent and his family. The farm had a garden, barns, and other outbuildings for chickens, hogs, and dairy cattle.

Peter Meyer was the first superintendent, hired in 1899 at an annual salary of $600. Harvey and Bertha Nelson were the last superintendents. Harvey Nelson managed farm operations while Bertha oversaw cooking, food preservation, and laundry for her family and all the residents.

After the farm closed in 1948, funds from the sale of the land were used for a county nursing home, and the buildings later demolished.

450th Avenue, north of 279th Street