8 October 2023
When it came time to sell the family farm in Scandia, Myron Lindgren had two choices: cash out and sell to a developer, or sell the land — at a much lower price — for inclusion in William O’Brien State Park.
Lindgren, 82, said the decision to have the land go to the state park in northern Washington County was an easy call. That’s what his late parents, Maynard and Helen Lindgren, would have wanted to see happen, he said.
“Mom and Dad worked hard on that farm,” said Lindgren, who now lives at the Seven Hills Senior Living Center in St. Paul. “I know they would have wanted to see it left alone rather than have houses all over it.”
Maynard Lindgren bought 120 acres of farmland in 1927, five years before he married Helen Johnson at Elim Lutheran Church in Scandia. The couple later purchased an additional 140 acres to add to the farm.
Myron Lindgren in his apartment in St. Paul on Thursday. Lindgren, 82, said he sold the family farm for parkland to honor his late parents, Maynard and Helen Lindgren, who had worked and farmed the land since 1927. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
“He bought it just before the Depression, and they had it hard,” Myron Lindgren said. “But remember, everybody had it hard back then. They all were in the same boat, more or less. Nobody had any money for anything. Some were better off than others, but nobody really had much money.”
Myron Lindgren sold most of the land, located on the western edge of William O’Brien State Park, in a number of transactions over a 26-year period. The Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota, a group that raises money privately to buy land for public parks, purchased much of the land and held it until the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources had the resources to buy it, he said. The first sale occurred in 1997; the final sale — a 60-acre parcel for $845,000 — occurred this summer.
“It’s an incredible piece of land,” said Steve Young, land acquisition manager for the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota. “It’s close to the Cities, and it has incredible views across the state park and into Wisconsin.”
Gateway Trail, wildlife corridor
The land could eventually be used for an extension of the Gateway Trail, said Wayne Boerner, park manager at William O’Brien State Park. The Gateway Trail currently runs 19 miles — from St. Paul to Pine Point Regional Park in Stillwater Township — and attracts an estimated 125,000 users a year. Plans call for the trail to connect Pine Point park and William O’Brien.
The last parcel of the Lindgren farm is under lease to a farmer until next year, Boerner said. After the lease ends, park officials plan to restore the land to native prairie — just like the other Lindgren parcels that are now part of William O’Brien, he said.
The Lindgren land will create a key wildlife corridor in the area, he said. “We’ve already had turkey, deer and grouse start to come into the park on that west side,” he said. “It’s a corridor for them to live and feed.”
The farmhouse and barns were knocked down prior to the DNR’s purchase of the property, Boerner said. Visitors are asked to stay off the center parcel as a safety precaution until the agricultural lease has ended, he said.
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Boerner said the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota deserves much of the credit for shepherding through the Lindgren land purchase. “They bought it from Myron to hold it for us until we had money. That’s a huge part of this,” he said. “Without them, we probably would not have a large portion of our park.”
Parks & Trails Council officials have assisted in adding 58 percent of the park’s total acreage — 1,076 acres in all. The estimated cost of the eight projects is $4.58 million.
The last 60-acre parcel at 15040 Old Marine Trail N. included Lindgren’s home and barn, Young said, and was in between former Lindgren parcels to the north and south that had already become part of the park.
“Myron would never talk about his legacy because it was never about him,” Young said. “He was trying to respect what his parents would have wanted with the land. He tried to honor that.”
Man of conviction
Lindgren is a man of conviction, said longtime friend Lester Rydeen, who has authority over Lindgren’s affairs, including power of attorney.
“He could have sold the land for $1 million-plus,” Rydeen said. “But Myron didn’t want it developed. He thought it would be better if it went to the park and stayed open space. That was his main deal: He wanted to preserve the land as open space more than he wanted the money. Everybody else would want the money. I mean, who would leave $100,000 or $200,000 on the table? Myron did. Didn’t even hesitate.”
Decades ago, Lindgren used to drive a school bus, and former students routinely would come up to Lindgren in town and tell him “hello,” he said. “If kids remember their bus driver after all those years, that says a lot,” Rydeen said.
Lindgren’s parents sold 12 acres of land to a developer and later willed 40 acres to his sister, Lindgren said. Lindgren sold 80 acres directly to the DNR for the expansion of William O’Brien State Park in 1997. Despite having some criticisms of park management, it was an easy decision, Lindgren told the Pioneer Press in 2000.
“You sell land (privately), and before you can say ‘Jack Robinson,’ they’ve subdivided,” Lindgren said at the time. “I can still walk over that land any time I want to. It will always be open.”
A fence post marks the boundary of a former cattle pasture at the Lindgren family’s former farm. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Lindgren was born and raised in Scandia; his great-grandfather Johannes Lindgren came to Scandia from Sweden in the 1850s, he said. “How did he pick Scandia? That’s a good question,” Lindgren said. “I think it looked like back home in Sweden. People who have been over to Sweden — to where they came from — say if you drive in northern Sweden, it’s just like driving in Scandia.”
Lindgren went to Hay Lake School in Scandia and graduated from Forest Lake High School in 1958. He said he never thought about doing anything other than farming.
“It was all my life there,” he said. “I was interested in it, so I didn’t really want to do anything else.”
The family kept a small herd of dairy cows and grew corn, oats and hay to feed the cattle. “It was an OK life in a way, but somebody had to be there 365 days a year, twice a day, every day, to milk them and take care of them.”
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In 1998, Lindgren bought a 350-acre farm in Kettle River, Minn., west of Moose Lake, which he still owns. “I figured the Cities were just going to keep pushing out and maybe I didn’t want to live in Scandia,” he said. “I figured Scandia was going to change so much, maybe I didn’t want to live there anymore. It’s hard to know when to leave.”
Lindgren, who has diabetes and neuropathy in his feet, uses a walker. “My sense of balance is terrible bad, but otherwise I’m fine,” he said. “For being 82, when it comes right down to it, my health is pretty good.”
He hasn’t been back to the family farm in several years, but he’s happy to see photos of what it looks like now.
“It still looks kind of the way it used to be, and that’s an improvement over having it all be houses,” he said.