Centennial Farms & Ranches
Kindvall Ranch
Weld County
In 1909 Alex and Clara Kindvall built a sod home on their newly acquired 320-acre Weld County homestead. They lived in their sod house for fifty years, raising kids Otis and Doris. On the farm they raised a different sort: livestock, including horses, hogs, chicken, and both cattle and dairy cows.
Like most homesteaders, they took care of their own butchering. In addition, they grew feed crops such as barley, corn, wheat and oats, and they had an extensive garden. The family preserved the garden’s produce, storing the root vegetables in a dugout and drying and canning the rest. In the early 1930s Otis built a farmhouse, which is still lived in today, as are the original barn and the grain-storage shed. Today Alex and Clara’s original sod home is still standing and used for storage, and their descendant George Kindvall and his neighbor Monte Younglund work together to raise cattle on the now 2080-acre ranch.