Lanesboro Sales Barn Completes Theatre-style Renovation

High-tech updates, comfortable seating and record-breaking cattle sales

By Tom Brudvig, October 7, 2025

A full house of farmers and ranchers sit shoulder to shoulder in the renovated Lanesboro Sales Barn’s theatre-style seats. Many wear baseball caps or straw hats as they watch the auction ring below. The tiered seating and upper-level balcony give the scene the look of a movie theater, with people leaning forward in concentration as bids are called out.

A full house for the auction in the Sales Barn's newly renovated seating area. (Photo by Tom Brudvig)

LANESBORO – This town is known for its two theatre venues – the Commonweal and the St. Mane – that are focused on the performing arts.

But now, there’s a third – sort of.

Just down the road on Coffee Street, you’ll find a new type of ‘theatre’ hosting a different kind of entertainment – an auction house equipped with movie-house comforts serving hard-working farmers and ranchers buying and selling livestock.

Three generations of the Nelson family stand in front of the Lanesboro Sales Commission building for the grand-reopening ribbon-cutting ceremony. The central figure, wearing a white cowboy hat and jeans, holds large scissors over a bright blue ribbon stretched across the group. Children and adults smile, framed by the cream-colored metal siding of the freshly renovated barn under a sunny sky.

The Nelson family, owners of the Lanesboro Sales Commission, cut the ribbon to celebrate the Sales Barn improvements. (Photo by Tom Brudvig)

It’s the Lanesboro Sales Commission, otherwise known as the “Sales Barn”, and it plays a vital role in this community and Southeast Minnesota (read To Market to Market: A Trip to the Lanesboro Sales Commission Auction published by Root River Current in 2024).

So, what’s new at ‘the barn’?

Theater style seating with arm rests and cup holders for 115.

Balcony viewing from three sides.

Inside the Stockyard Café, visitors sit at tall stools along a wooden counter overlooking the auction arena below. A young girl in a tie-dyed shirt leans on the rail, watching the action, while families eat lunch at round tables under warm, wood-paneled walls and bright fluorescent lights. A television monitor displays sale information in the background.

Auction attendees can grab a bite and view the arena floor from three sides with the new wrap around balcony. (Photo by Tom Brudvig)

Automated doors onto the sales floor.

A new 50,000-pound capacity in-floor scale.

An improved sound, computer and big-screen system that displays the weight and the bidding on the livestock as each appears on the sales floor.

And all of these updates were completed in just 61 days!

In the bright, clean sales arena, auctioneers sit at a raised desk marked “Lanesboro Sales Commission” while handlers guide small black-and-white calves in the ring. Digital screens on both sides display weights and bids in bold numbers. The audience watches from rows of cushioned seats, capturing the mix of modern technology and traditional livestock trading.

Calves are shown on the new arena sales floor with automated doors and in-floor scale. (Photo by Tom Brudvig)

Record-breaking sales and a celebration

A Customer Appreciation event was held in September to introduce its updated facility to customers, friends and residents.

In showing appreciation to the construction crew and to thank their past and present employees, customers and guests, the Nelson family, who own the business, served nearly 700 free lunches – steak sandwiches, potato salad, beans and ice cream. (The facility’s Stockyard Café was open for its regular Friday auction customers as well.)

Dozens of community members and farmers gather outdoors at long picnic tables beside the white metal-sided Lanesboro Sales Commission building. Under a clear blue sky, people in caps and sunglasses enjoy steak sandwiches and ice cream during Customer Appreciation Day. A food truck with a pasture-scene mural sits nearby as sunlight glints off the gravel lot.

A special appreciation lunch for the construction crew, customers and their families. (Photo by Tom Brudvig)

Besides acknowledging updates to the facility, the sales day was “record breaking” with approximately 2700 head of cattle sold. The National Beef Wire noted that the day – September 12, 2025 – was Lanesboro Sales Commission’s “best sale in barn history, setting 29 new records across multiple weight classes.”

The arena was packed most of the day and bidding was fast and furious.

A wide view of the sales arena shows the Nelson family standing near the cattle pen, surrounded by spectators seated in plush, maroon chairs. The crowd, made up of farmers in denim shirts and cowboy hats, looks on attentively as family members chat and children hold small bouquets, celebrating the barn’s reopening.

The arena was packed all day with guests and their families, sellers and bidders and the press. (Photo by Tom Brudvig)

With record beef prices, there was no question that sellers were happy, and buyers were counting on the market staying strong – optimism needs to be the rule and guiding principle when you buy an 85-pound calf for a thousand dollars, which may be more than two years away from market.

Three black Angus cattle stand closely together inside a holding pen, sunlight highlighting their glossy coats. Their yellow ear tags read “5311” and “5251.” The animals appear calm, with one gazing directly toward the camera—an up-close look at the livestock central to the Lanesboro Sales Commission’s record-breaking auction day.

“Prime” guests at the grand reopening of the Sales Barn. (Photo by Tom Brudvig)

Besides sellers making good money on their cattle sales (supply of cattle is still weak), it was evident that buyers at the auction were there to replenish their herds for the foreseeable future and find “quality” cattle to take advantage of favorable prices in the market.

The Lanesboro Sales Commission did its homework and successfully organized, presented and offered a record number of cattle in a setting that is ‘hard to beat.’

And Lanesboro’s “theatre district” got a new neighbor.

Learn more about the ‘sales barn’, its auctions and services on the Lanesboro Sales Commission website.