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Estimates are that more than 1000 ghost towns lie in the rural areas of North Dakota. Depopulation and under-settlement of the Great Plains are not new phenomena, however. This vast area was considered "filled-up," fully settled, between the late 1890s and early 1920s. Yet the midwestern section of the United States has always had fewer people per square mile than the other regions.
The subhumid climate and the sparse grasslands just weren't made to support much life or livelihood. But the Northern Pacific Railroad (and later other major rail transporters) was optimistic and opportunistic. Immigrant upon immigrant was courted to North Dakota to grow spring wheat to feed the flour mills of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Raising beef calves was secondary only to the wheat; they grew as fat and healthy as buffalo on the prairie grass.
Small towns sprang up by the hundreds as rural areas needed supplies that could be purchased nearby, and railroads needed stations to service their own needs. Stores, city halls, churches, banks, and schools proliferated in these hamlets. The raising of a building to house a post office was considered a crowning achievement. Pride in community was as important an element as any, as evidenced by the legion of immigrant and church societies.
What happened to this rosy picture? By most accounts, mechanization and technology limited the number of people needed to sustain a farm. Tractors and other farm machinery did a better job in less time with fewer workers, and automobiles enabled more trips to the "big city," where supplies could be bought at a better price than in small-town stores.
The 160 acres allotted by the Homestead Act of 1862 was barely enough to support a small family, let alone the larger-than-average families of immigrants. Several periods of drought and its accompanying impoverishment were hardships some farmers were ill-equipped to survive. The Great Depression further divorced some farmers permanently from their land. Historically, crop prices can vary greatly from year to year, and many a farm bank has been left with delinquent loans and defaults.
In the latter half of the 20th Century, railroads abandoned towns at an epidedmic rate. A disused stop meant sure demise for a community; scores of defunct way-stations dot the North Dakota landscape. Indeed, a station-house may be all that has been left behind when other buildings are razed.
Rural youths have always turned their backs toward the farm, with no intent to return. The excitement of the big city and the promise of well-paying jobs lure them away. In recent years, outmigration has proceded alarmingly, to the degree that North Dakota in specific and rural midwestern areas in general, have aging and aged populations.
Towns of 1500 or less are especially compromised. With the youth leaving for the magnet cities of Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, or Minot, or even for another state, these hamlets cannot even meet the birth-to-death ratio. Fully two-thirds of North Dakota counties have been subjected to this long-term painful draining, according to the 2000 Census.
©2003 by Brenda Johnson 