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After decades of growth, a research community's network information system and data repository were transformed to become a national data management office and a major element of data infrastructure for ecology and the environmental sciences. Developing functional data infrastructures is key to the support of ongoing Open Science and Open Data efforts. This example of data infrastructure growth contrasts with the top‐down development typical of many digital initiatives. The trajectory of this network information system evolved within a collaborative, long‐term ecological research community. This particular community is funded to conduct ecological research while collective data management is also carried out across its geographically dispersed study sites. From this longitudinal ethnography, we describe an Incremental Growth Model that includes a sequence of six relatively stable phases where each phase is initiated by a rapid response to a major pivotal event. Exploring these phases and the roles of data workers provides insight into major characteristics of digital growth. Further, a transformation in assumptions about data management is reported for each phase. Investigating the growth of a community information system over four decades as it becomes data infrastructure reveals details of its social, technical, and institutional dynamics. In addition to addressing how digital data infrastructure characteristics change, this study also considers when the growth of data infrastructure begins.