1920 Pictures of Clarence Rognlie's Hillsboro Farm

These are photos from the Herberg, Traill County, North Dakota farm of Clarence Rognlie (1896-1968). He is the son of Ole Jacobsen Folstad Rognlie (1841-1914), who came to America with Peter Rognlie and his mother in 1870. Ole's Homestead farm was the southern most of a group of Rognlie farms on the North Dakota side of the Red River just south of Caledonia. These Photos were published in the "Hillsboro, North Dakota - The First Hundred Years", a Hillsboro centennial book 1881 to 1981, p66. In the photo 2nd one down on the far left, he had at least one tractor. That put him in the lucky minority. In 1920 there were 6.4 million farms and yet in all of the country there were only 225 tractors! 1920 was the 'Hay-Day' for Americian farming. There were the largest number of farms the US would ever see and they were the most profitable they would ever be! President Wilson artificially raised the price of a bushel of wheat in 1917 from 89¢ to $2 to support the war effort. Almost all of the farms in 1920 were small family farms, including the various Rognlie farms. Most were 160 acres which was called a "quarter section" or less. A quarter section is what The Homestead Act of 1862 granted and what many of the Rognlie clan acquired.

Photos of Clarence Rognlie's Farm - Hillsboro, North Dakota, 1920