Cokato farm turns 100 years old

By Kristen Miller
Staff Writer

Just over a year after Jeffrey Russel took over his three-generation Cokato farm from his father, Ralph, he received the only Century Farm awarded in Wright County this year.

“I always wanted my own farm and it just worked out that I had a chance to move back here,” Russell said.

He spent 20 years in Hutchinson before returning to the farm where he grew up. Russell is a full-time brick layer in the Twin Cities, alongside his farming, which makes for some long days, he said.

Russell’s great-grandfather, Enoch Russell purchased the farm in 1907, not long after he and his family came over from Sweden. It then went to his grandparents, Martin and Mary Russell, and then to his parents, Ralph and Arlene.

Throughout the years, the farm has seen some changes including a new home.

On the 74-acre farm, the Russell family has raised mostly corn, soybeans, and beef cattle.

Russell currently has 31 head of purebred Angus and Hereford cattle.

In the early 1990s, the Russells sold 10 acres to St. John’s Catholic Church for an education center.

Recently, the farm added fencing by Grassland Solutions for rotational grazing.

Russell is a DC graduate and has two sons and a daughter.