“I think of the unbelievable sacrifices that previous generations made through the years,” said Bahls, speaking of his family’s Heritage Farm and great-great grandparents Carl and Fredirecka Bahls.

In 1874, several land seekers (including Carl Bahls’ friends Fred Ramthun, Fred Berner and Frank Wendt) left Lindenwood, Illinois, (west of Chicago) to locate new homes on the western frontier. They arrived in Fort Dodge and met with a land agent, who brought them to Calhoun County in a horse-drawn buggy.

Each man bought land for $5 an acre.

“They hurried home to Lindenwood with the good news,” noted the book “Immanuel Lutheran Church, Rockwell City, Iowa, Celebrating 125 Years 1878-2003.” “They took a map of Center Township, from which four other fathers at Lindenwood selected a parcel of land. They trusted their friends and took their word that the land was good.”

-Submitted photo
On countless Iowa farms, including the Bahls farm (shown here around 1930) near Rockwell City, unloading a wagonload of ear corn into a corncrib was a common sight at harvest. Notice the horse-driven elevator.

Carl Bahls was among those who purchased Calhoun County land on Aug. 13, 1874. Bahls, his family and six other families from the Lindenwood area traveled to Manson in mid-March 1875, arriving in the midst of a snowstorm. According to the Immanuel Lutheran book, those hardy pioneers “found shelter in a home, which was called a hotel, and bedded themselves in straw on the floor during the storm, a genuine blizzard that lasted for three days.”

The Bahls family and their friends established farms in Calhoun County, along with Immanuel Lutheran Church east of Rockwell City. The farm and church were important to Carl’s son, William, and his wife, Bertha, as well as their children.

Their son Emil (1901-1989) started farming full-time at age 15 after his father died from a blood clot. As a young man, Emil played a key role in saving his family’s land during the Great Depression.

In the early 1930s, the Bahls family owed about $28,000 to a Chicago bank, which was going to foreclose on the farmland, Emil noted on a video recording he made with his wife, Esther, in 1987. While emergency “commissioner loans” were available to help farmers struggling with debt and foreclosures, there was a snag.

Loan administrators didn’t think the Bahls family had clear title to the land, due to some unclear wording in William’s will. The Bahls family hired an attorney to prove they did have clear title.

“It took a couple of years to straighten this out,” said Emil Bahls, who noted that Iowa’s elected officials had imposed a temporary moratorium on farm foreclosures starting in 1933. “Oh boy, those were rough times.”

The case went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court, which ruled in the Bahls family’s favor. “This not only saved our farm, but 95 other farms that faced a similar situation,” Richard Bahls said.

The farmland later passed to the next generation, including Emil and Esther’s son, Roger, and his wife, Phyllis. Their son, Richard, spent 35 years of his career as an ag lender before he began farming full-time about 15 years ago.

During the 2009-2010 school year, a German exchange student named Sascha Boden lived with the Bahls family while he attended Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge. He also helped on the family’s farm. Boden returned to Calhoun County in October 2024 to help with a final harvest before Richard Bahls retired.

“As Sascha said after we combined the last rows, ‘This operation started with an immigrant from Germany, and it ended with the help of a German,'” said Richard Bahls, who stays in contact with Boden. “I’m grateful we can honor the legacy of our Heritage Farm.”

Bahls Heritage Farm

Established: 1874

Township: Center

Number of acres

in original farm: 80

Heritage Farm Award: 2024

Generation: 5th generation farm