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Larkin River valley, since 1958

We have sold the Hollis place three times.

Walt Oxbow sold it in 1961. Ray Pine sold it in 1994. Last spring his daughter Ellen sold it to the family who had farmed it on rent for eleven years. We have been at the closing table for 1,200+ farms and ranches in this valley (sample), and we know which of them flood in a wet April.

Rows of corn running down to the Larkin River under wooded bluffs
Bottom ground along the Larkin River, below Hollis Ridge.
1958
Walt Oxbow and Harold Pine shake hands in the sale barn on River Road
1,200+
Farms and ranches sold in the valley since then (sample)
214
Farms we have sold twice, and 31 we have sold three times
9 of 9
Townships in Larkin County where we have closed a sale

Three farms for sale this fall, priced from the soil up

Every listing comes with the plat, the soil map, the tile maps if there are any, and the story of who farmed it. Ask and we will mail or email the full packet the same day.

The 320 acre row-crop farm on Hollis Ridge at first light

Row crop, Hollis township

Hollis Ridge farm

$2,600,000320 acres$8,125 per acre
  • 301 tillable acres, productivity index 86
  • Pattern tiled in 2014, maps included
  • Two bins, 30,000 bushels, on paved County Road 9

Walt Oxbow sold this farm to the Aldous family in 1971. Their grandchildren asked us to sell it again.

Send me the plat and soil map
Cattle wading the river frontage on the 1,100 acre Marrow Creek ranch

Cattle ranch, Marrow Creek township

Marrow Creek ranch

$5,900,0001,100 acres$5,364 per acre
  • 1.8 miles of Larkin River frontage, two wells
  • 640 acres native grass, 260 hay, 200 timber
  • Runs 300 pairs, pipe corrals, 1978 ranch house

Cross-fenced into eleven paddocks. Dale Amundsen has walked every one of them twice this summer.

Send me the plat and soil map
The red barn and silo on the 80 acre Cedar Ford homestead

Homestead, Cedar Ford township

Cedar Ford homestead

$690,00080 acres$8,625 per acre
  • 1912 four-bedroom farmhouse, red barn and silo
  • 52 tillable acres, cash rented through 2027
  • Spring-fed creek and a 30-tree apple orchard

Eight miles from Ferris Bend on gravel that the county grades every April.

Send me the plat and soil map

Sold in this valley

Nine townships, and the farm next to yours is probably on this map

Every dot is a farm or ranch we closed since 2020. A ringed dot is ground that had already been through our office once, sometimes twice. Pick one to see the acres, the price per acre and the year.

Upper LarkinQuill LakeSewardBell PrairieOxbow BendHollisMarrow CreekCedar FordTamsinCounty Road 9the oxbowLarkin RiverFerris Bend
Row cropCattle ranchHomesteadRinged: we sold it before

Hollis township, sold 2025

The Hollis place

Acres
240
Type
Row crop
Price per acre
$9,100
Sale price
$2,184,000

Sold by Walt Oxbow in 1961 and by Ray Pine in 1994. Same ground, same family name on the sign.

16 sales shown, 7 of them farms we had sold before. Sample data.

Ellen Oxbow-Pine, broker, on a farm walk

Ellen Oxbow-Pine, managing broker since 2015.

Two families, one handshake in 1958, and a wedding in 1966

Walt Oxbow could sell a quarter section in four minutes from the auction block. Harold Pine could tell you what was under it to four feet. Neither of them could have run a land company alone, so they ran one together, and their children went one better and got married.

  1. 1958

    Walt Oxbow, the county auctioneer, and Harold Pine, who mapped half the valley’s soils for the government, open an office in the old sale barn.

  2. 1966

    June Oxbow marries Ray Pine. The two families have been one firm and one family ever since.

  3. 1979

    June and Ray take over. June runs the auctions, Ray keeps Harold’s soil field books on the office shelf, where they still are.

  4. 2004

    Ellen Oxbow-Pine gets her broker’s license at 24 and sells her first farm, a Quill Lake eighty, to a neighbor.

  5. 2025

    The Hollis place sells for the third time, to the family that had rented it for eleven years.

How a farm leaves one family and reaches the next

A hand reaching for a ripe ear of corn at harvest
  1. 1.We walk it with you, fence line to fence line

    Before we talk price, one of us walks the whole farm with you: the tile outlets, the wet corner by the road, the gate that sticks. Buyers ask about all of it, and we would rather hear it from you first.

  2. 2.We price it from the soil up

    Harold Pine’s 1950s field books, today’s soil survey and every sale we have closed in your township go into one opinion of value. Not the number a neighbor heard at the co-op.

  3. 3.We call the people who should own it

    Usually that is the family renting it, the farm across the road, or a buyer we sold to ten years ago who told us to call when this one came up. We keep that list by township.

  4. 4.Private sale or auction, and we tell you which

    Some farms bring more at a sealed-bid auction in the sale barn, some sell better quietly. We run both, we tell you which one we would pick for your ground, and we close at the Larkin County courthouse.

Letters that got pinned to the sale barn wall

Sample letters, written for this concept.

“Ellen knew the north forty floods every third spring before we told her, because her grandfather wrote it down in 1963. The buyer never found anything we had not already put on the table.”

Marion Aldous

Sold 240 acres, Hollis township

“We had rented the Hollis place for eleven years and assumed it would go to an investor. Ellen called us first. We closed in March and planted it in May.”

Travis and Kim Lindqvist

Bought 240 acres, Hollis township

“Dale rode the ranch with me on a four-wheeler for a full day and priced the river frontage separately from the upland grass. That one decision was worth more than his commission.”

Russell Hauck

Sold 640 acres, Marrow Creek township

Still in the 1958 sale barn on River Road

The auction ring is where Walt called his first farm sale and where Tom calls them now. The front room holds the maps, the coffee and Harold’s field books. Come in muddy, most people do.

  • 2140 River Road, Ferris Bend, a mile south of the Cedar Ford bridge
  • Monday to Friday 7:30 to 5, Saturday mornings in planting and harvest
  • (555) 014-1958
The old sale barn on River Road at sunset, our office since 1958
Brokers walking a field road with a buyer

Four brokers, all raised within 20 miles of the barn

  • Ellen Oxbow-Pine

    Managing broker

    Third generation. Row-crop farms, estates and anything with a family story attached.

  • Dale Amundsen

    Ranch and pasture broker

    Ran cows on Tamsin hill ground for 30 years before he sold his own place and came to us.

  • Maria Solberg

    Broker and agronomist

    Reads a yield map faster than most people read a menu. Handles cash rent and farm management.

  • Tom Pine

    Auctioneer

    Ellen’s cousin and Harold’s great-grandson. Calls every sale in the barn, the same ring Walt stood in.

Ask what your land is worth before you tell anyone you are thinking about it

Ellen or one of our brokers will call within two working days with an opinion of value built from your soils and the last sales in your township. Nothing goes on a list and nothing gets posted.

  • No charge for an opinion of value, and no contract to sign
  • Rather talk? (555) 014-1958

Your name stays in this office. We do not share it with buyers until you say so.