Crawfordsville, Arkansas | JohnW - 1/31/2015 01:01
+1. There are so many little towns all over the country that are slowly dying and filled with second hand and antique stores.
Walmart and the internet are two factors. Good roads and ease of travel is another. I think it is just a sign of the times.
Another factor in farm country is the size of farms and farm machinery. A section was a big farm when I was a kid and now that is a small farm when many farms are thousands of acres with huge 500 hp tractors. Ag Ed programs are also going away in high schools too because of a lack of farm kids to attend them.
A lot of towns originally sprung up when travel was by horse and buggy and distant travel was by rail.
Walmart gets blamed a lot but tractor and equipment size has as much to do with it as Walmart. My grandfather and his brothers farmed 10,000 acres way back when. I bet they had 30-50 employees at any given time. Now 4-5 guys can do the same amount of work. I can't blame a guy for moving off to town when his job and livelihood just got eliminated by 500 horse tractors and 40' draper heads.. |
Small town ND
