The Farrington farm borders the river near the village of Henderson. "Town" for the Farringtons is nearby Le Sueur. Calvin Farrington, born in New England, was lured to the valley in the 1850s by pioneer accounts of its bounty... tales of extravagant natural fruitfulness, of cultivated onions the size of turnips and turnips the size of pumpkins, of a farmer who lost the top three feet of his bottom land to spring floods but still had excellent crops. A farm could be made at trivial expense here; Nature had already done so much of the work: The charming slopes are intersected with pretty dells, studded with trees as gracefully as if they had been planted with the most refined taste. It is a common remark that the whole country looks as if it had been suddenly deserted by a civilized people – the fences and buildings removed, and the orchards left standing. You look out instinctively for the house and barn; for flocks and herds; for men, and women, and children; but they are not there. A race that is gone seems to have cultivated those fields, and then to have silently disappeared. – from writings of J.W. McClung & J.W. Bond, Minnesota pioneers

Author's note: I saw ads featuring the Jolly Green Giant and his Valley from the time I was a child. It was not until well into adulthood that I learned that the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant is the Minnesota River Valley. The Green Giant Company was founded in Le Sueur in 1903 and was first known as the Minnesota Valley Canning Company.