The owners of the farm, Wendelin and Julianna Grimm, immigrated from Germany and settled in Carver County, Minnesota in 1859.

In 1900, two professors from the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, Willet M. Hays and Andrew Boss, visited his farm and were impressed by the thriving crop in the winter.

A few years later, Hays, who had become the assistant United States Secretary of Agriculture, named the variety "Grimm" alfalfa.

University of Minnesota agronomy professor Lawrence Elling called Grimm alfalfa the most important crop development in North America until the invention of hybrid corn.

[2] Since the land was no longer a working farm, the farmhouse was in a process of decay, and trees had begun to grow in the former pastureland.