Forced off the interstate in southern Iowa and the detour caused me some impromptu touristing. From the bridge over the river leading to the town, I could see the ruins of the mill that started the town. First a saw mill, later 4 stories over a grain mill. Looked up the town and got a feel for it during its glory days. Two teachers taught over 200 students in a town that likely has less than 50 residents today. The railroad bridge ruins consist of two concrete pillars and google maps satellite view is nearly devoid of any existence of a railroad bed.

Davis City Iowa is a sad but not rare example of once bustling American towns that are in such a state of decline that extinction looms. Internet search indicates this town once had mansions and an opera house. Now there are stone steps and walls surrounding empty lots.

My cursory analysis is that these towns could not support a middle class income and ambitions possibly instigated by WWII spurred the exodus. Maybe desire to live within range of a TV station helped finish them off.

Tell me about your experiences with boom vs bust in areas you know or grew up in or are familiar with, and opinions or observations about what killed these towns.

I intend to find a dying town to retire to.

Remember, the Homestead Act allocated 160 acres for a family in that part of the country. For a generation or two, maybe even three, that was sufficient to feed a family and generate some income. By the 60s, someone had to work outside the farm. Still, farm equipment limited the acreage a farmer could work.

Towns were founded based on 19th century modes of transportation. It worked for awhile to have one county seat 50 miles (usually less) from another. All the businesses in town were developed based on the small, family farm: groceries, grain elevators, car dealers, implement dealers, etc. etc.

By the end of the 60s, nobody could make a living with 160 acres. Farm tractors began to grow bigger, more powerful. The implements they pulled grew along with the tractors. Farmers who weren’t making a living began to sell to their committed neighbors. The sellers moved to town, or more likely, the city. Those who remained grew bigger as their ability to farm more acres grew.

Bigger farms, less farmers. Better highways, less need for all the businesses that grew up with the farm towns. Less people to support those businesses.

The cycle continues to accelerate.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
I intend to find a dying town to retire to.

That's ookie. I hope you live it up for a while first.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Remember, the Homestead Act allocated 160 acres for a family in that part of the country. For a generation or two, maybe even three, that was sufficient to feed a family and generate some income. By the 60s, someone had to work outside the farm. Still, farm equipment limited the acreage a farmer could work.

Towns were founded based on 19th century modes of transportation. It worked for awhile to have one county seat 50 miles (usually less) from another. All the businesses in town were developed based on the small, family farm: groceries, grain elevators, car dealers, implement dealers, etc. etc.

By the end of the 60s, nobody could make a living with 160 acres. Farm tractors began to grow bigger, more powerful. The implements they pulled grew along with the tractors. Farmers who weren’t making a living began to sell to their committed neighbors. The sellers moved to town, or more likely, the city. Those who remained grew bigger as their ability to farm more acres grew.

Bigger farms, less farmers. Better highways, less need for all the businesses that grew up with the farm towns. Less people to support those businesses.

The cycle continues to accelerate.

I certainly hope that it isn't as simple and sad that the size of a farm kept growing in order to be profitable. Mechanizing farms does weed out those who can't or won't spend what it takes to become efficient. 50 small farmers might support a town that a handful of larger farmers working similar acreage can't. Modern efficient farming methods might be a significant factor. If so, what in hindsight could have been done to save some of these towns, assuming as I do, much was lost not saving them.

quote:

I certainly hope that it isn't as simple and sad that the size of a farm kept growing in order to be profitable.

It was several things coming together—technology along with economy of scale. Farms get bigger, farm towns die. No work in farm towns, kids leave and move to Des Moines, or Omaha, or Denver.

Lotta neat ones round here in the midwest. Im surprised a group of folks havent bought one up and made it a prepper town yet.

The Yoop is full of "shadow towns" that are not quite fully deserted but are a shadow of what they used to be. It is the boom and bust nature of the economy here. Marquette County examples:
Beacon.
Republic.
Diorite.
The history of these places fascinates me and I often go to them and spend the day exploring them.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
I intend to find a dying town to retire to.

Honestly, so do I.

quote:

Originally posted by pbslinger:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Remember, the Homestead Act allocated 160 acres for a family in that part of the country. For a generation or two, maybe even three, that was sufficient to feed a family and generate some income. By the 60s, someone had to work outside the farm. Still, farm equipment limited the acreage a farmer could work.

Towns were founded based on 19th century modes of transportation. It worked for awhile to have one county seat 50 miles (usually less) from another. All the businesses in town were developed based on the small, family farm: groceries, grain elevators, car dealers, implement dealers, etc. etc.

By the end of the 60s, nobody could make a living with 160 acres. Farm tractors began to grow bigger, more powerful. The implements they pulled grew along with the tractors. Farmers who weren’t making a living began to sell to their committed neighbors. The sellers moved to town, or more likely, the city. Those who remained grew bigger as their ability to farm more acres grew.

Bigger farms, less farmers. Better highways, less need for all the businesses that grew up with the farm towns. Less people to support those businesses.

The cycle continues to accelerate.

I certainly hope that it isn't as simple and sad that the size of a farm kept growing in order to be profitable. Mechanizing farms does weed out those who can't or won't spend what it takes to become efficient. 50 small farmers might support a town that a handful of larger farmers working similar acreage can't. Modern efficient farming methods might be a significant factor. If so, what in hindsight could have been done to save some of these towns, assuming as I do, much was lost not saving them.

Yes there is another aspect of this that TMats did not mention, and may never have considered.

The US Tax code makes it impossible for small farms/ranches to compete effectively.

Large "agribusiness" is usually a branch of or subsidiary of other business, and the tax code enables these businesses to use farms and ranches, "agribusiness", to write off "losses", thereby enabling them to pay materially, substantially, less tax.

The losses written off are not true losses. Rather, they are investments that increase value and will be cashed in at a later date when advantageous to the large business.

Here is an example: The ranch immediately north of mine is owned by Ensign Group, a Utah-based business that has its fingers in many pies. This year they installed three spanking new irrigation pivots (automated sprinkler systems that cover 126 acres). Excluding the cost of groundwater well construction, turbine pumps and power units, the cost of which is very highly location dependent, these systems cost about $50K each, just for the pivot pipe. Total costs for these three systems, including everything needed to make the pivot pipe work, probably approached 1/2 million. Installing these pivots made the value of the property skyrocket, while giving Ensign Group a nice tax write-off. At some point in the future the ranch will be sold (probably to another "agribusiness" holder looking to save some taxes by showing a faux-loss), and Ensign Group will get its money back plus a nice profit. In the meantime, Ensign Group saved itself a quarter million or more in taxes to Uncle Sam. If they had just put that half-million that the pivots cost them into the bank account, or invested it in T-bills, they wouldn't have gotten the tax break -- they used the ranch as their own personal bank and got rewarded by Uncle Sam for doing so.

In other words, large businesses use their "agribusiness" arms as tax shelters by deliberately operating at a faux loss. This need to operate at a loss makes it impossible for little operators, family farms and ranches, to compete effectively with them. So family farms and ranches get squeezed out, and little farming communities and the small business that serve them all die out.

There's a bunch of them out in eastern MT. There's even an old (mostly) deserted Air Force Base. Kind of eerie that one is.

It is the nature of the western United States to have dead towns of various vintages scattered around or paved over. Americans have never had a problem with the idea of moving. Transportation lines change, industries come and go, opportunities boom in some greener pasture somewhere else.

I've told the story of Falcon, Texas here before, which still lies at the bottom of a man-made lake except in the direst of drought conditions. Travel along the Pacific Coast, through northeastern Arizona or in the lower hills of the Texas Hill Country and you'll find several small farm towns that either got abandoned and covered with suburbs or were annexed in one way or another and covered with suburbs. Walk around anywhere from California to Colorado and you'll pass through deserted mining towns of all sizes. Drive from Texas to Missouri and you'll see a number of towns that are either dead or dying because all the old folks died off and all the young folks moved off to better opportunities in the city.

It can be kind of sad, if only because you get a vivid sense of a way of life that's passed away or is passing away. But this really has been a common feature in American history and new places or kinds of places are popping up all of the time.

Meanwhile, I get a kick out of seeing an original painted advertisement for a livery on a wall in downtown Austin and wandering down lanes that have existed since the days when O. Henry survived on a diet of tamales. I've walked through a lot of places in California, Oklahoma and Texas where a lot of what used to be is still in place and can still give you a pretty good idea of how things used to work 'way back when. It can be a lot of fun to look at a place like that, whether out in the middle of nowhere or somewhat built over in an existing urban area, and try to piece together what buildings were there, what traffic was like, how it related to surrounding towns, and so on. If you get good at it you might wind up finding roads, bridges, and old buildings around you that you didn't notice at first simply because they logically had to be there.

I was just talking about this the other day, but my point was the small rural towns are dying because there are no jobs.

Kids get out of high school and find no good jobs locally and move away for work and/or college. They leave and never return to live, maybe just to visit. The towns get run down steadily and never recover, just worsen. I see it all over.

Maybe it's time to establish one as a sort-of 1940s version of Colonial Williamsburg, where people live and work the way they used to and folks come and pay admission to watch it.

The Ozark Cultural Center outside of Mountain View, Arkansas sort of fills that niche, but not completely.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by sig77:

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
I intend to find a dying town to retire to.

Honestly, so do I.

Bloomsburg PA. An economically depressed area my whole life. But, it has a level one trauma center and teaching hospital! Liberal gun laws, very healthy gun culture, and my barber shop!

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
Kids get out of high school and find no good jobs locally and move away for work and/or college. They leave and never return to live

It's 2 fold- There's No Jobs and there's also No Labor Base so a company couldn't put in a business since there's no qualified labor pool to get workers from.

I grew up in Flint, Michigan. It was great place to grow up, with a foot in both the 19th and 20th centuries. It was vibrant and a decent place to live, with its multitude of jobs and services. However it was a one horse town, being the home of GMs Buick and Chevrolet products. When GM decided to leave the area, for a variety of reasons, the town was devistated. Thousands of good paying jobs left, never to return. The job market seems to determine how viable an area is. If locals can find worthwhile work, the area thrives; no other factors are even close. A poor economic base=sayonara.

It all comes down to tax base.

No taxes - no town.

Seems that I recall there was a song about these things.

https://youtu.be/uTLcZDY9pzs

I grew up on that farm. My dad owned 1/2 a section (320 acres) and he made a good living for us during the '50's and '60's with one tractor and no hired help (just us kids). In the late '50's and up 'til the late '80's he rented some land. Back then everybody lived on the farm and went to "town" for groceries and church.

Now nobody lives on the farm. Everybody lives in town. Unless you farm 3,000+ acres you cannot "make a living". They own 4-5 tractors, have 4-5 "hired hands", have government payments, and are still not getting paid any much more for there crops than they were in the '60's and '70's .