In December 1917 Samuel Schaal Sr. put a payment down on 320 acres of land near Burlington on behalf his son Jacob. Jacob started building a sod home in 1918 and after returning from World War I, finished the home and added a well house, barn and chicken house. Jacob and his wife Emma raised their family in the soddy, growing hay, wheat and corn and running about 40 head of cattle. Emma was fatally burned in a tragic kerosene accident and Jacob never remarried. After returning from World War II, Jacob's oldest son Ted expanded the ranch across County Road 48. A Quonset hut was added in 1948 and a silo in 1955. Ted bought his father’s cattle in 1966 and increased the operation to around 200 head in the 1970s. Ted and his wife Elma’s children Clyde and Geneva grew up on the farm with Geneva eventually settling in Aurora with her children Babette and Justin. Clyde moved back in the 1980s and with his wife Teresa raised sons Brian Lewis, Craig and Braden at the farm’s original headquarters. In the 1990s the farm expanded again when Ted and Clyde added the first irrigated land to the farm. In the early 2000s Ted turned more of the operation over to Clyde and Clyde’s son Braden. In 2002 the farming operation transitioned from flood irrigation to sprinklers and in 2009 Braden and Clyde purchased the nearby Rhoades ranch adding 640 acres and 500 head of cattle. A feedlot was purchased in 2010, shortly after the passing of Ted and Elma, which brought the farm to what it is today—including many acres of owned and leased farmland and pasture, more than 1,000 mother cows and a working feed yard.