Item 6 HPC_ParkSignage_RoundBarn_R3101
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NASHUA AVE
ODEAN AVE
85TH STREET
85TH STREET
MACIVER AVENUE
78TH STREET
PAGE AVE
75TH STREET
The Round Barn (2022)
Credit: John Waldron
The Lefebvre family is an integral part of the history of Otsego, both old and new.
The Lefebvre name in Otsego started with Ferdinand Lefebvre, who immigrated from Canada to this area in
1875. He married Zerilla Bourgeois, the oldest daughter of an Otsego farmer (who had also immigrated from
Canada in 1844) and his wife. Ferdinand and Zerilla Lefebvre had several children and these descendants have
added much to our community. The original homestead of Ferdinand and Zerilla Lefebvre, located at the
northwest corner of Parrish Avenue (CSAH 42) and 85th Street, is familiar to many residents of Otsego today
as the location of a round barn.
About 1915, Ferdinand Lefebvre had the round barn built by his sons, Johnny, Joe, and Noel, with the help of
carpenters from Dayton. Most of the wood used in the construction of the round barn is roughhewn tamarack
above an outer rock wall foundation that is two feet thick taken from Joe Lefebvre’s land near current Nashua
Avenue and 85th Street. The center column supporting the roof is almost 50 feet in length and looks like an
opened umbrella inside of the hay mow. The roof was replaced in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The round barn
was originally painted red and it was later refurbished with white metal siding and metal roofing ending its
opportunity to be recognized as a registered historical building.
The farm was a dairy until the 1940s with milk hauled to Elk River by horse and wagon. Eddie Lefebvre, a son
of Noel Lefebvre, explained that the shape of the round barn was very efficient for tending cattle. Hay stored
in the hay mow would be thrown through a door in the floor down to the cattle in 23 stanchions whose heads
were facing the middle of the building and four horse stalls. From a corridor behind the cows around the circle
of the barn, manure would be shoveled through vents in the floor to a waiting wagon to be taken to the fields
to be spread for fertilizer.
Noel Lefebvre lived on the farm from 1925 until 1976. He and his wife Mary (nee Holland), had six children.
Their youngest son John Lefebvre (Ferdinand and Zerilla Lefebvre’s grandson) continued to farm the original
property after his father died, but never married or had children. When John Lefebvre died in 1997, his brother
Eddie Lefebvre’s son Kevin and his wife Benita moved to the property as the fourth generation of the family
to live at the farmstead with the round barn now in their care.
Kevin and Benita Lefebvre have sold portions of the original property for development. The Stonegate Estates
neighborhood south of 85th Street, which was developed in 2000, was originally part of their farm. The City
of Otsego acquired land at the southwest corner of the homestead in 2007 as a possible fire station location.
More recently, Kevin and Benita have sold land for new residential dwellings and commercial lots as part of
the Parrish Meadows plat approved in 2021.
THE ROUND BARN
8585 Parrish Ave NE, Otsego, MN
TOWNSHIP OF OTSEGO
WEB
The Round Barn (circa 1920)
Credit: Otsego Heritage Preservation
John Lefebvre
(circa 1990)
Credit: Kevin Lefebvre
Noel and Mae
Lefebvre, (1975)
Credit: Kevin Lefebvre
Ferdinand and Zerilla
Lefebvre (1929)
Credit: Otsego Heritage Preservation
www.ci.otsego.mn.us
est.1858
Sources:
– Kevin Lefebvre
– Otsego Heritage Preservation
Commission
– Elk River Star News, “The Round
Barn” by Joni Astrup, May 2010
– US Censuses from the years
1920, 1930, 1940
ITEM 6