Item 6.6 Fire station display photos- history highlights of OtsegoOTSEGO FIRE STATION
The history of the site to be developed with the first Otsego Fire Station is like the story of many family
farms that were the foundation of Otsego’s development and history.
Wilfred and Rose Friedrich were farming in Otsego near the southwest corner of Page Avenue and 90th
Street (CSAH 39). Wilfred was born to farming in St. Michael and spent some of his childhood in
Frankfort. In 1953, Wilfred and Rose bought 140 acres of land from Joseph and Ann Heuring located
west of Odean Avenue (which was CSAH 37 at the time) at the present-day intersection with 75th Street.
Vernon, a son of Wilfred’s, remembers being 11 years old and helping drive their dairy herd from that
farm to the new farm about 3 miles away. Vernon remembers a team of horses pulling a wagon as part
of this move over roads that were just gravel then. They went west along 90th Street (CSAH 39) to Odean
Avenue to their new farm. The farmstead was just southwest of the current 75th Street intersection,
which is now to be the location of Otsego’s first fire station.
The farm was primarily a dairy farm with 34 head of cattle, which were Guernseys at first, then later
Holsteins. They also raised assorted other animals including pigs, chickens, and ducks, and there were
dogs and cats too. In 1977, Wilfred and Vernon quit dairy farming and auctioned off their dairy cattle
and equipment. They continued to raise crops and keep pigs. Because the development was not
eminent, Vernon continued to farm the land, raising corn and pigs, until 2006. Then the final farm
auction was held.
Vernon and his wife Leona met while working in Minneapolis, were married in 1965, and moved to the
farm in 1968. They brought their three children with them to the farm and later had one more child,
born after the move.
In 1984, Wilfred passed away. Rose passed away in 1993.
Vernon and Leona moved off the farm in 2001.
Wilfred and Rose sold two twenty-acre parcels of the 140 acre farm to Mark and Eugene Kolles south of
the Otsego Fire Station property. In 1998, Vernon and Leona sold the remaining 100 acres to Scherr
Brothers. Scheer Brothers sold 80 acres of the property to D.R. Horton and Benzinger Homes for
development of the Ashwood neighborhood, which includes a park named in honor the Friedrich family.
In 2019, the City of Otsego purchased the 20 acre parcel south of 75th Street for the purpose of
developing the Fire Station. The Otsego Fire Station will be constructed on approximately five acres near
the intersection of Odean Avenue and 75th Street. The City Council will determine a use for the
remaining property in the future.
Item 6.6