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Vintage Aerial

WMortensen

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Vintage Aerial photo from 1969 in Anoka County, MN
1969
Anoka County, MN
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This used to be the Tillong Farm on Radisson Rd. N.E. in Blaine, MN. The Tillong family lost the property during the Great Depression and moved to Oregon. The Tillong name is Norwegian but it's a "dead" name -- I only find it on local gravestones and a couple of death notices in Oregon. No one has the Tillong name that I'm aware of. The original house had been built in the 1880's when the Tillongs first moved there. The barn was built using construction tile which could be purchased cheaply in the '20s after a number of tile manufacturers in the Twin Cities had gone bankrupt after WW I. The beams and supports were made from redwood and came from old boxcars that were being broken up. New lumber was used for the hayloft. The silo was a product of the Independent Silo Company of St. Paul, MN and consisted of redwood heartwood staves which were bound by redwood heartwood strips about 4 inches wide that were soaked in water so they could be bent around the perimeter of the staves. A patent plate covered the joints where the "siding" butted against the next piece. The wood was applied similar to clapboard with the next course of siding overlapping the course below. I've only seen this brand of silo elsewhere on 3 occasions. One is (or was) located in Hennipen County roughly northwest of Lake Minnetonka. Another one could be seen from U.S. Hwy. 10 a few miles east of Prescott, WI. The third was located near Battle Creek, MI while driving during a Model T Ford Club convention. The shed located just northwest of the barn was constructed to house a tow-behind combine and was built from the lumber salvaged from the old ice house on our family farm in Fridley, MN. The two smaller buildings south of the barn are a chicken coop and a brooder coop for raising the chicks. Probably built at the same time as the barn was built. The farm sat abandoned until about 1940-42. A lawyer by the name of Oscar G. Nelson bought the 160 acre farm, tore down the old farmhouse and built a new house on the property. During construction it appears that he (and family?) would live in the old granary while tearing down the old house. Once the basement had been constructed for the new house it appears that they moved into the basement while completing the house. O.G. Nelson offered the farm for sale in 1954 listed for $13,000 dollars. My parents, Walter & Gladys Mortensen purchased the farm that year. The house was heated with coal or wood. The furnace was an old school house stove that had a brick apron built around it topped with a sheet metal cover to which the gravity heat ducts were connected. Cold air returns simply emptied into the basement with no ducting to the furnace. System worked very well but hauling wood into the basements every Saturday afternoon was a tedious affair. My parents sold the farm and vacated it in the spring of 1969. None of the building exist today, replaced by the Quail Creek housing development.