Minnehaha Grange Hall

Minnehaha Grange No. 398 was organized on December 12, 1873, with members from Edina Mills, Richfield Mills, St. Louis Park, and the surrounding area. It first met in members' homes, then began building a hall near Edina Mills in the summer of 1879 at the southeast corner of Wooddale Avenue and West 50th Street, now the site of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Completed in February 1880 at a cost of $400, largely through volunteer labor, the hall hosted its first meeting on February 27, 1880. The Good Templars also met there, and together with the Grange purchased an organ for the building. Electricity was installed in 1926. James A. Bull, the first Master of the Minnehaha Grange, was one of three men instrumental in establishing the University of Minnesota Farm School in St. Paul. Organizational meetings that led to the founding of the Village of Edina in 1888 were held in the hall, which served as the Village Hall until 1942. After the ground lease expired in 1935, the building was moved to the old Yancy homestead on Normandale Road, where it remained until 1969, when highway improvements forced another move to its present site. The hall is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Grange itself grew from the troubles of rural America after the Civil War, when destroyed farms, depleted herds, abandoned crops, debt, and poverty burdened farmers. In 1867, Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founded the Grange, or Patrons of Husbandry, to promote dignity, prosperity, education, and advanced farming methods. Intended as a non-sectarian, non-partisan social fraternity for farmers and open to both men and women, it expanded rapidly, becoming by 1875 a national organization with 21,000 local chapters and more than 1.5 million members. Local chapters functioned as lodges with ritual, educational institutions, marketing cooperatives, and forces for social betterment. Grange halls were arranged as replicas of old English estates, with officers including the Master, Overseer, Steward, Chaplain, Gate Keeper, and Lecturer. The Grange also became a powerful legislative force that helped secure state laws regulating railroad freight rates and storage charges.

Edina, Minnesota · United States