Death of the Dream
Some farms changed hands. Some got bigger. Some went out of business. The first of many farm attritions began in the upper Midwest. These would continue right up to the present.
With each passing year of the 20th century came more changes to the nature of farming. Telephones, roads and rural electrification made farms less isolated. Tractors, pesticides and hybrid crops increased yields and spurred modern agricultural systems. Through each bit of progress, more and more of the old L style homes were torn down, burned or abandoned.
Yet thousands of these homes remain to dot the county trunks and state highways of the upper Midwest, many of them unkempt and decaying. The people who built them are long dead. Odds are good that their ancestors live nowhere in sight of the old homestead. Though it looks like a good strong wind could knock many of them over, they still stand, reminding us of another era and another way of life---a humble testament to a humble dream.
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