quote:

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

Me also Sig2340 - Nothing would make me happier than to count the cars driving down main street in a day on one hand while sipping on my coffee....Mark

My wife and I like to do road trips in 'out of the way' parts of the western states and one thing we've discovered is great food at mom and pop cafes in small towns. Homemade soups, chili, clam chowder in the coastal towns, sandwiches, etc. Most small towns also have a B & B to stay overnight at reasonable cost. Truly a fun way to travel.

Jim

My home town, Idaho Springs Colo. went from mining to almost a ghost town, so did abut 5 town near by. Then folks started leaving Denver and building hones in the mountains, boom towns again.

Presentably Riverton Wyo. thanks to a slow down in the mineral tax base and jobs, sees folks moving out and empty businesses. We do have a prison which may be good for something, schools bring in tax dollars, but soon folks will rebel and schools will know increasingly fewer students as their folks seek employment elsewhere. Meanwhile Government continues to build and soon they will run out of money. They want to increase taxes, but there are going to find folks to tax gone.

quote:

Originally posted by sigarmsp226:

quote:

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

Me also Sig2340 - Nothing would make me happier than to count the cars driving down main street in a day on one hand while sipping on my coffee....Mark

THat's too busy for me. LOL I want to walk out on my porch and hear nothing but birds and wind.

I believe Iowa had more towns than any other state due to agriculture and getting products moved. As the railroads grew and especially the automobile, that was the end.

We travel a lot of two lanes, we avoid the interstate as much as possible. I've seen plenty of dying and dead little towns. Just the bars and a Casey's remaining. Some places are lucky and have an industry to keep it viable. Casinos were an attempt to make small towns live a little longer.

If you want to see some real depressed places, head South. I found the worst of it in LA., TX, OK. But there's plenty to go around.

A Sunny Day at the Feed Store, Columbus Jct, IA

Lamb's Of Colfax, IA

C.E. Faust ~ Delaware, Iowa

Volga City, Iowa

The Old Bank - Letts, Iowa

Dixie - Ruston, LA

The Paramount - Clarksdale, MS

Durrett Brothers = Arcadia, LA

I have a hundred more shots of depressed and dead places.

GrayGuns is in a place where the whole county has been dying since the 60's.

Well, except for Grayguns. That's part of the reason I love seeing them get some business --- they actually employ people there.

back in my family's part of the country, across the Mississippi from Hannibal Missouri, about 100 miles north of St Louis, the railroad stopped running, an interstate and a new Mississippi bridge were built 10 or so miles north, and the Flood of 1995 pretty much more than decimated the place. The home where four generations of my family lived was so devastated, the local vollies burned it down for practice. If you don't farm a thousand acres, you can't make any money.
The John Deere, International Harvester, and Chevrolet agencies closed, the school were consolidated, it's enough to make me cry.

quote:

the school were consolidated, it's enough to make me cry.

Losing the local schools was a very sad part of the demise of small towns.

quote:

Originally posted by greco:
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.

You ever watch the Netflix 2 part show called Flint Town? It is sad how that City was destroyed. Man, that PD. I feel for them. I feel for every one of the good people in that town.

I remember reading around 2011 or so that roughly 2/3 of the United States population lives within the 100 miles of a USA land border or coastal border.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
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.

What AFB are you referring to Gustofer??

Glasgow AFB.

All the buildings and base houses are still there, just deserted. Well, most of the houses are anyway. An outfit had the idea to turn it into a retirement community back in the 70s/80s. It didn't work out, but some folks still live out there.

Boeing does use the runways occasionally to test out planes too. But the rest of the base? Tumbleweeds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqEHvdqzEuk

I practiced in the county north of Decatur County, where Davis City is for 5 years but have never driven through there. I don't think it was ever anything to look at. From Google Maps it is maybe 20 small blocks, most appear only 1/3 occupied. In its heyday in 1900 it had 600 people, now it has 200. Not sure if it every really lived, but I think I-35 being built took much of its life away from US 69 which you were probably detoured on. The southern 2 rows of Iowa counties generally never were very prosperous. The ground is not near as good for the large farming operations that pour money into Iowa's rural areas. The land value is $2,000-$3,000 per acre vs. the $8,000+ per acre tillable Iowa land you find north.

I assume you drove north through Leon, Iowa, the county seat, its been about 2,000 people since inception. If you continued north on US 69, you'd drive through Osceola, Iowa which has actually grown almost every census and sits at a whopping 5,000 people. It has a casino, the railroad, and being within commuting distance of Des Moines to thank for that.

Iowa's story of rural death is not in the towns, it's in the country. Large commercial farming operations replacing small family farms. More children going to college and not coming back to the family farm. Decatur County, where Davis City and Leon are in has a current population of 8,000, in 1900 it had 18,000, that was with its two largest cities having populations of 2,000 each then and now.

quote:

Originally posted by pbslinger:

quote:

the school were consolidated, it's enough to make me cry.

Losing the local schools was a very sad part of the demise of small towns.

Two years ago, the school district where my home is dropped a level in classification. Now, there are less than 300 students in a district that covers parts of five counties. It was projected within five years, it'll drop another level.

It's pretty much God's Waiting Room, here.

I live in a small town but it's grown from 900 to 1400 over the 13 years I've been here. Drive down main street and there are no businesses, no police, no fire , no ambulance, no schools. We use shared services, probably won't change in my lifetime.

The area around me is booming, new hotels, restaurants and housing. Our county is amongst the fastest growing in the country. Not sure I want to see what the next 13 years bring.

quote:

Originally posted by Scuba Steve Sig:

Iowa's story of rural death is not in the towns, it's in the country. Large commercial farming operations replacing small family farms. More children going to college and not coming back to the family farm. Decatur County, where Davis City and Leon are in has a current population of 8,000, in 1900 it had 18,000, that was with its two largest cities having populations of 2,000 each then and now.

I grew up in a much larger "small town" of 23K in Eastern Iowa also the county seat.
Not much has changed in population and a lot of the same plants are still in operation so I assume that keeps a lot alive.
But I hear ya on the commercialized farms.
Kinda sad but a lot of other types of businesses have taken new forms due to the Internet, Technology, dying B&M stores too > also sad.
Maybe that's why they call it the 'good ole days'.

There are a few fading towns in my area, however most faded many years ago. Some, like Brookneal, Va are just holding its own.

I read this website about North Dakota frequently.

http://www.ghostsofnorthdakota.com

The saddest, near dead town I know of is Burkett, Texas. The town was started by my great grandmothers family. Nothing left but rundown shacks and abandoned houses. Lots of relatives used to live there and lots of relatives in the cemetary there.

Check out the pictures here and see if you don't agree this is about the saddest remnants of a town you have ever seen:

http://www.texasescapes.com/Te...ns/Burkett-Texas.htm

^^ I've heard of Burkett ^^ but never been there. It IS sad, also not real close to anywhere.

A small community can survive but must be near an area that can also provide it's needs or wants.
A uber-small town cannot survive on it's surrounding members alone.
Or it has to have something going for it such as a particular business that doesn't depend on the local economy or a plant/factory, etc.
A total self-sufficient small community is not of todays economy model like it was in yesteryears.
The community must contribute something economically not just be a consumer.

On a slight drift to the political side.
Note how all of these counties in America are RED?
Hard to compete with a dense block of New Yorkers with their hand out.

As my wife and i wandered most all of the country west of the Mississippi river for 8 years in our RV, the majority of our miles were accumulated on 2 lane roads. We passed through so many dead and dying towns, it was sad, yet enlightening for us.