As a land speculator, Oliver Dalrymple was as enormously successful as he was as a farmer. The Dalrymple land, near Fargo and the Northern Pacific mainline, has a rapid increase in price. Dalrymple, who bought land in 1876 and after for prices ranging from 40¢ to $5 per acre found his land worth $20-$25 per acre by 1884.

After the dissolution of the Cass-Dalrymple partnership in 1896, the Dalrymples divided their land into ten units. After Oliver Dalrymple died in 1908, his sons (William and John S.) continued to operate the farm until 1917. They concluded that the interest on the proceeds of selling the farm would be greater than the profits from operating the farm. Accordingly, they began so sell parcels of the farm. The farm depression of the 1920's, however, resulted in many repossessions of the land sold and thus forced the Dalrymples back into farming. In 1955, John S. Dalrymple still owned about 25,000 acres.

The photgraph of the Dalrymple Farm Crew belwo was taken by J.H. Hamlin, a photographer from Casselton, Dakota, in the 1880s.