Lanesboro’s earliest economy relied on wheat processed in mills powered by the new dam on the Root River. A decade later depleted soil prompted farmers to try other crops and livestock. Early dairy herds were small (the typical farmer had only a dozen or fewer cows) and butter-making took hours of work (especially for the women doing most of that labor). Dairy wasn’t making any farmer rich.

An idea developed: could multiple farmers combine resources in a cooperative to buy new cream-separating technology to make more butter—and more money? In 1890 Danish-American farmers in Clarks Grove, Minnesota, organized a dairy cooperative; ten years later Minnesota had more than 550 of them.

In 1924 Lanesboro ag-business leaders named Scanlan, Horihan, and Bakke started the Lanesboro Co-op Creamery operative creamery in this building. It worked; within three years butterfat prices rose to 43 ½ cents a pound. “Lanesboro’s Pride Creamery Butter” soon gained a positive reputation and lots of customers.
By the 1960s food regulations and changes in national eating choices led to a decline in business. In 1970 the Lanesboro Coop. Creamery was sold to Land O’ Lakes. Three years later it closed for good.

A new chapter in this building’s history was written in 1984 when Dick and Lucretia Brehm, with their daughter Karrie, established the Scenic Valley Winery, to produce unique wines made from local fruits and vegetables, including apples, cranberries, and elderberries. Their popular rhubarb wine (“a light crisp and refreshing white wine with a rhubarb flavor”) gave that sturdy yet odd plant new prominence, maybe one reason why Lanesboro was named the official “Rhubarb Capital of Minnesota.”

Times change, so do businesses. The Scenic Valley Winery closed in 2015. A pound of butter, a glass of wine happened here. Who knows what’s coming next?