Homestead of Knud S. Knudson

Duane's take

The official marker's the source I'm working from tonight, so let me tell you what it says. Out here in Bosque County, the land has a way of holding onto stories, and the story of Knud S. Knudson is one worth holding.

Born in 1830, Knud was a Norwegian immigrant, and in 1868, he packed up his family and moved them to Bosque County. Now, that's no small thing. That is a man with a plan and the backbone to see it through.

He received a state land grant and established a farm right at this very site. A small log home went up in the 1860s, and later, because a man with eight children needs more room, that home was enlarged with a limestone addition. Limestone.

Because when you're building something to last in Texas, you build it in stone. Knud and his wife Gunhild raised those eight children on this land, worked it, shaped it, made it theirs. Gunhild passed in 1917, and Knud himself had gone on before her, in 1910.

But the farmstead, the family home, two barns, and the outbuildings scattered around them, all of it stayed in Knudson hands until 1945. Nearly eighty years of one family in one place. What you're looking at, if you're standing here today, is what historians call a rural Norwegian vernacular farm complex, which is a fancy way of saying: this is how those Norwegian settlers built, and this one survived.

Not every homestead gets that kind of ending.

What the marker says

Norwegian immigrant Knud S. Knudson (1830-1910) and his family moved to Bosque County in 1868. He received a state land grant and established a farm at this site. A small log home was erected in the 1860s and was later enlarged with a limestone addition. Knudson and his wife Gunhild (d. 1917) were the parents of eight children. This farmstead, consisting of the family home, two barns, and out buildings, remained in the Knudson family until 1945. It is a fine example of a rural Norwegian vernacular farm complex. (1988)