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Bonanza farms were very large farms established in the westernUnited States during the late nineteenth century. They conducted large-scale operations, mostly cultivating andharvestingwheat. Bonanza farms developed as a result of a number of factors, including the efficient new machinery of the 1870s, cheap abundant land available during that period, the growth of eastern markets in the U.S., and completion of most major railroads between the farming areas and markets.
Most bonanza farms were owned by companies and run like factories, with professional managers. The first bonanza farms were established in the mid-1870s in theRed River Valley inMinnesota and inDakota Territory, such as theGrandin Farm. Developers bought land close to theNorthern Pacific Railroad, for ease of transport of their wheat to market. Investors also organized bonanza farms farther west.
Many bonanza farms were established in this period inNorth Dakota; a number have been preserved.[2]
Bonanza farms were encouraged byJohn Wesley Powell who, by the 1870s, had found that the land he studied needed larger-scale irrigation systems that would lead to larger areas of land being taken care of. Powell, a geologist, asserted that family-owned farms that had been in use in accordance to theHomestead Act of 1862 did not quite give the land the type of help required to keep it fit.[3] Though less numerous than family farms, the Bonanza operations began to be competitive with the smaller operations.
Bonanza farmers pioneered the development of farm technology and economics. They usedsteam engines to power plowing as much as 4 decades before the modern farmtractor made its appearance -plows andcombine harvesters drawn by steam tractors were used in the West in the 1880s and 1890s. Thedivision of labor was applied in bonanza farms generations beforefamily farms adapted to these modern ways. Farm boys from theMidwest, working on bonanza farms in the early 20th century, transplanted these ideas toCorn Belt homesteads and built larger farms as the century progressed.
TheFrederick A. and Sophia Bagg Bonanza Farm is located in southeastern corner of North Dakota. The preserved Bagg Bonanza Farm was designated as aNational Historic Landmark in 2005.