Donations may now be done online
http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Valley-Grove-Preservation-Society

Two historic Norwegian immigrant churches sit on a hill in the farm valley south of Northfield, Minnesota near Big Woods State Park in a panorama of new prairie and oak savanna.

The Valley Grove Preservation Society members are stewards for the two churches, the stone church built in 1862, the white clapboard church built in 1894 and for 50 acres of rolling prairie grasses and trees surrounding the site.

In 2000, in an eleventh hour appeal to friends, the Society raised the funds to acquire and preserve the land surrounding the churches from development and restore it to native prairie and oak savanna. In the past few years, the church has also received a new steeple roof, finials, extensive exterior repairs, re-painted exterior and as the first well being dug.

Since 2007 restoration of the 1862 stone church is also underway and will proceed as funds are available.

Valley Grove is on the National Register of Historic Sites. Under the oak tree in the southwest corner of the churchyard, Pastor Bernt Julius Muus from Norway baptized 52 children in 1859; he went on to help found St. Olaf College. Many of the memorial stones are in Norwegian , and the graveyard contains the family plot of the innovative Veblen family, whose son was economist Thorstein Veblen.

Today, Valley Grove is the site of weddings as well as its annual country social and concerts including its well-loved Christmas Eve concert/celebration.