Changes in Minnesota agriculture in the 1860s forced farmers to face new problems. Farming remained very difficult. Land and new implements were heavily mortgaged. Prices for farm produce were very low, and monopoly railroads charged farmers high prices for transporting their grain to market. Farmers had nowhere to turn for help. They also found it hard to find dependable information on the quality of new farm equipment, and few farmers knew much about agricultural science.

Oliver Kelley experienced these problems himself as he farmed his land in Minnesota. In 1867, while working part time in the Post Office in Washington, D.C., to help pay his farm debts, Kelley began organizing the National Grange. He organized Granges from his Minnesota home throughout the 1860s, and he met with great success when the Grange spread like wildfire throughout the nation in the 1870s.