Welcome to Scandia
Keep an eye out for barn quilts and statues of Dala horses as you make your way thorough Scandia. They are hints of the town's history as the first Swedish immigrant settlement in Minnesota.
Many of these settlers came by way of New York City, making their way to the St. Croix River and finally Log House Landing, where they greeted a landscape reminiscent of their homelands - land that had been ceded by Dakota tribes in the Treaty of 1837.
Beginning in the mid-1800s, this community of dairy farmers helped each other raise barns, tend fields and can food for winter, needing little beyond a creamery, mercantile, church and one another.
Although farming is no longer the main enterprise in Scandia, the open views and rolling hills that attracted the first Swedish settlers are not difficult to find. And you can still see many of the original immigrant buildings at the Gammelgården and Hay Lake School museums.