John B. Wennerberg Barn

Built: Ca. 1895

Built by John Wennerberg c. 1895, the Wennerberg Barn was first used a part of his commercial farm. The three-aisled, end-opening barn’s design, as well as the remnant notches in the crossbeams and posts of the ground-level aisles convey the Barn’s use for housing livestock and storing grain.

Following Wennerberg’s death in 1918, the property was purchased by Adelbert D. Brooks, who along with his brother Frank, owned and operated the Carlton Nursery Company. In 1919, the Carlton Nursery moved its packing and shipping operations from a nearby warehouse on Pine Street to the Wennerberg Barn. The barn was used until 1936 as the Carlton Nursery’s packing and distribution center for the stock grown on the Company’s primary nursery to the east of Carlton near Lafayette. These years were significant to the Carlton Nursery Company as it grew from a state and regional distributor of a variety of agricultural and horticultural products to a company that sold its products to markets nationwide.

John B. Wennerberg (b. 1842) emigrated from Helsingborg, Sweden in 1871 and was a significant citizen in the early European history of Carlton. He served as a sponsor to many Swedish families in their emigration from Sweden to the Carlton area. Mr. Wennerberg lent money to families for building their own farming businesses. Wennerberg was a generous benefactor to the city of Carlton and donated the land where Wennerberg Park is today. He shaped the growth and look of Carlton by helping fund the building of the first City Hall and sold a large tract of the west side of Main Street Carlton, and several blocks south, to the city for a very nominal fee.