In 1891, German emigrant William Bruentrup married Ida Wagner and the bride’s family gave them 40 acres of farmland on the east side of White Bear Avenue (just south of today’s Lydia Avenue) as a wedding present. They built today’s barn in 1905 and they enlarged the original house to two stories in 1912. A granary, silo, machine shed, maintenance shed, chicken coop, brooder house, windmill, and smokehouse were also added. They expanded the acreage to 175 acres and built a successful dairy farm with 20 milk cows, 1 bull, 6 workhorses, 100 chickens, and a number of hogs. Bruentrup Farm