LA PORTE, Ind. — An Indiana man knew his farm had been in the family for a long time but he didn’t know just how deep his roots extended until recently. 

The Mrozinski farm established in 1881 was among 103 farms in the state recognized during the recent Indiana State Fair for being in the same family continuously for more than a century.

Nate Mrozinski, 38, said finding out more about the history of his farm was like an itch he could no longer keep from scratching as he became older.

He was also driven by a still standing barn erected on the family farm in 1930. The builder, Fred White, painted his name and the year it went up along with his place of residency inside the barn. White was from nearby Galien, Michigan.

“Come to find out we’ve had the ground a lot longer than we’ve had the barn,” Mrozinski said. 

The farm can be recognized from a distance by the metal sided red barn and a windmill beside it. 

Mrozinski did not how long the windmill has been standing but it’s been there well before he was born.

“They used to pump water from it.  It’s still hooked up but the well’s run dry,” he said. 

He said his father, Mark, and grandfather, Ed, both shared some of the farm’s history with him over the years but there were still plenty of gaps he wanted to fill. “My grandfather had told me some.  They used to farm back with horses and we still have some of the original equipment like the horse drawn plow and stuff like that we keep up in the barn just as memorabilia,” he said.

Mrozinski said he began his research at the La Porte County Recorder’s Office to locate past deeds to the property and any other information he could find. He then went online to uncover more history about the farm but there were some questions only relatives could answer. “The last few years I was curious about how long our farm had been around. I started tracing it back and I had some family members that had a little bit of paperwork for me,” he said.

Mrozinski said he learned that his great-great-grandfather, Jacob Mrozinski, started the farm by purchasing 20 acres after coming from Poland.

The family farm owned by Mrozinski, his brother, Erik, and their sister, Morgan, has since grown to 400 acres and another 1,800 acres of rented ground spread over nearby Kankakee, Galena, Hudson and Wills townships and outside New Carlisle. 

The state has declared the property a Hoosier Homestead Farm because of its age under a program recognizing farms in the same family for 100 to 200 years to help celebrate the heritage of agriculture in the state.  

Mrozinski said one of his favorite childhood memories on the farm was his grandfather allowing him to operate a tractor for the first time to plow a field when he was probably “six or seven years old.”

“He finally asked me if I was ready and I’ll never forget that,” he said. 

After graduating from Purdue University with a degree in agricultural economics, Mrozinski became a custom applicator of fertilizer and pesticides for the Starke County Coop.

He later returned to the farm when his father and grandfather passed away.

The property used to be mostly a dairy farm until his family decided in the 1990s to get out of the business and focus more on row crops.

Mrozinski, who also has early memories of his great grandfather, Louie, said it’s a great feeling to have more of a complete picture of the farm’s history.

“It gives you a sense of pride and it makes you happy to be able to continue with a family legacy.  It makes you want to keep going,” he said.

Since 1976, more than 6,100 families have received the Hoosier Homestead Award and signs containing the designation are given to recipients for them to post on their farms.