This page has had 588995 visitors so far.
| The International 1:55 Stock Food Farm |
  The image on the right shows the location of the International 1:55 Stock Food Farm in Savage, Minnesota where Dan Patch and his stable mates resided in the early 1900's. The surrounding terrain has changed quite a bit since 1970 when this aerial photo was taken, but you can still get a pretty good idea of where the farm was located. The photo is facing the southwest. To the west on Hwy 13/101 is Shakopee and Valleyfair. To the east is Burnsville and I-35W. To the north is the Minnesota River. The road to the old Savage Bridge (a swing bridge with a wagon/auto lane on one side and a railroad lane on the other) only goes for a short distance before you encounter a road block. The bridge was closed in the 1970's, but the Twin Cities & Western Railroad recently bought the bridge and put the rail part of it back into operation. The structures at the bottom of this photo are part of the Cargill grain terminal. You can see where Credit River runs through the land. There is reportedly another "trout stream" on the land, but I am not sure where, if there is. The stables were located just on the north side of Minnesota Hwy. 13 - roughly across from Quentin Ave. and Continental Machines. I have superimposed an image of them into the picture approximately where they would have been (believe me - they were not still there in 1970.) The famous "Taj Mahal" stables, built in 1902, were a flamboyant six-winged (some accounts say five-winged, and some artwork such as the litho below show it as 4-winged) structure that had 130 white box stalls, steam heat, running water, electric lights, a blacksmith shop, and a fire engine. Dan Patch's stall was 20 feet square. Reading, sleeping, and bath rooms were available for the 60 employees who were housed in the structure. In addition to the 130 horses housed in the main building, 200 brood mares were kept in a separate barn behind it.The Mosque-like structure was painted white with green trim, and had a large glistening "onion dome" at its center that held a large water tank filled with 5000 barrels of water. The water came from a local spring, and provided water for the entire complex. Under the dome in the octagonal center of the building that was over 100 feet high was a cinder-floored, 90 foot diameter cooling ring. Each wing was 157 feet long with a 40 foot lane - one of which was attached to a covered, steam-heated, ½ mile track. |
 |
The ½ mile covered racetrack ran to the west of the stables up near where the road to the old Savage Bridge is (off the front left of the stables - not behind it as depicted in the litho above.) It was 30 feet wide, with 8400 panes of glass on 1400 windows. You can see a slight outline of it in the above 1970 aerial photo, and it can reportedly still be seen today from the air as well (anybody got a helicopter?)  The grade of the ½ mile track can also still be seen from the ground (see the photo on the left which was taken from the edge of the property.) There was also a larger 1 mile track that was set at a NW/SE angle behind the location of the stables. This track was designed by a man named Seth Griffin at a cost of $18,000, according to a Savage publication. I am told that you can still find parts of the grade of this track as well, though I have not trespassed onto the property to find it. An earlier aerial photo that is displayed in the "Heritage Room" of the Savage Branch of the Scott County Public Library shows the outline of both tracks quite clearly, which is how I was finally able to determine the lay of the land. The photo in the library also shows that the driveway to the farm was about where Quentin Ave. would be if it crossed over to the north side of Highway 13. If I can ever get a copy of this photo, I'll put it on the site. |
| |
 On the right is a photo of the stables, which were designed by M. W. Savage as they were so that they would provide good ventilation and sunshine in every box stall. The railroad bridge that you see in the lower right of this photo is a key. If you stand just to the east of the Credit River on the south side of Highway 13 now looking north, you'd be about where this photo was taken from and this bridge is still there. Reportedly, somewhere among the 4 or 5 tracks that cross the Credit River there is at least part of the original bridge, and supposedly some of the original stonework can still be seen. I have walked over to the bridges and I personally can't tell one from the other, so I can't verify any of this. It is intriguing, though, if nothing else. I plan on taking a closer look once the weather is better here in the frozen north. |
 I took the photo on the left in April 2002 from approximately the same spot, though the angle is a little different. I shot the photo facing northwest from the parking lot at the Motor Mart (Amoco) station on Princeton Ave. and Minnesota Hwy. 13 in Savage. Key on the railroad bridge (barely visible) on the middle right-hand side, and you can compare the two photos. As you can see, there is (shamefully) nothing left at the site. To the left of the "Left Turn Lane" sign on the north side of the highway, you can make out a gate, which is one of several gates that block roads going into the site. I believe this gate is located about where the driveway to the stables was located (at the end of Quentin Ave.)Near the banks of the Credit River, which flows under the highway at this point, is where Dan Patch was supposedly buried in an unmarked grave. There is a horse graveyard in the back of the land down towards the Minnesota River where many people believe the grave lies. Legend has it that Dan Patch's ghost haunts the site, according to a November 2, 1987 article in the Prior Lake American. Old timers in Savage used to say that Dan's spirit was "standing watch over the grave." The story was probably fabricated for a reason, though. The article quotes former Savage Mayor, Cleve Eno, as saying "They'd say a ghost was down there guarding the grave. I think they didn't want anyone to dig it up." The late Dan Patch historian, Joe Egan, concurred. The article goes on to say "shortly after he [Dan Patch] died, there was a real danger that someone would try to dig up the grave." Another story circulated after Dan's death that Mrs. Savage had always been jealous of her husband's love for Dan Patch. A June 23, 1964 Minneapolis Star article about the story says that she reportedly "took his [Savage's] death as evidence of this and had a hired hand assist her in secretly burying the horse in a place where he would never be found." Harold Savage vehemently disputed this in the article saying "I know where the grave is and there is nothing to that story. No two people could have been more devoted to each other than my mother and father." So much for those two old yarns! |
| Continued on Page 2 (Click HERE) |
| "1:55" thanks to Chuck Nelson, Museum Curator for the Minnesota Masonic Homes, for the excellent reference material he loaned to me for creating this site, and Lisa Thorpe, Web Coordinator for the Minnesota Masonic Homes for putting me in contact with him. The Bloomington campus of the Minnesota Masonic Homes is located across the river from the stable site and was the site of Savage's summer home. |
| The MINNESOTA Page Index | |||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
[Top]
Search This Site
Comments, criticisms and suggestions welcome ... Woodshed@deckernet.com| About This Page |
| Graphics on this page were hand crafted from scratch and from other graphics by Martha Decker on a Dell 8300 using Corel Photo Paint and Paint Shop Pro. The page itself was created using Hot Dog Pro 7.03 for Windows. If you are interested in using any of my graphics, please send an email to the autoresponder Graphics@deckernet.com for permission. This page was developed on a computer running at 1280x1024 resolution at 65K colors. If you are running at a different resolution or color depth, things might not look as intended. I HIGHLY recommend that you run at least 65K colors. The Web will look dramatically different to you - I guarantee it! |
 |
| Home to the Woodshed |
|
Links Checked by Linkbot
1/3/06
Fight Back... REPORT UNSOLICITED EMAIL!
| Email addresses and other personal information listed on these pages may NOT be gathered or used in any way for commercial or adult bulk "Spam" emailing lists! |
http://deckernet.com/minn/DanPatch/DanPatchFarm1.html
Copyright © 2006 Martha Decker
Last modified on Tuesday, January 03, 2006