Free Land
We're all a bit young to have been Sooners, jumping the gun for the Oklahoma land rush. We missed the homesteading opportunities in Alaska. We'll never get a section (160 acres) just for building a house and tending the land for a few years. But there are still some homesteading opportunities around.
This slideshow from CNBC lists some of them.
Marne, Iowa is a very tiny town, but within a long commute from Omaha and Des Moines. They have three residential lots available for a person to settle on and build a home.
New Richland, Minnesota is a small town 75 miles from the Twin Cities that is offering 86'x 133' lots in a subdivision. You have to pay for utility connections and build within a year.
Kansas has so many counties with free land programs, they have a central website, www.KansasFreeLand.com.
Beatrice, Nebraska has several lots available, first come-first served, where you will have to occupy for five years before it is all yours.
Curtis, Nebraska is a town of 832 that offers several free lots in a subdivision, and others that overlook the town's 9 hole golf course.
Not mentioned in the slideshow was Chugwater, Wyoming. You may have had some chili made with the delicious Chugwater Chili spice mixtures. It's a very small town about 1/2 hour north of Cheyenne. A couple years ago, they also had a homestead program, but a recent visit to their website looks like it has ended.
While such locations may not be an option if you have to be in or near a major city for work or other reasons, small town living can be very attractive to an entrepreneur working from home, the retired, or someone with a mobile job such as doctor, teacher, or minister. If It Hits The Fan, I'd much rather be in a small town than in a major city. This might be just the program for some of you to achieve that.
very good post. I am of the same mind set as you. I am looking to get out of the city and to a small town. I am not doing this just for the prep part of it, I want to be somewhere that I know my neighbors and can actually talk to them without seeming weird or suspicious in some way.
ReplyDeleteAfter more than 40 years of living in various major metropolitan cities along the west coast, six years ago I moved to a very remote, high-desert community of about 2,500 people.
ReplyDeleteIt was the ABSOLUTE BEST thing I could have done. It's almost like I moved back to America in the 1950's. People here stop and talk to each other, they wave at each other as they pass on the hiway, they help each other. There's an almost palpable sense of community-spirit and pride and togetherness. There's a very strong emphasis on family principals and youth. Maybe its because of the remoteness of the area and the (quasi)rugged individualism required to live under these circumstances, but whatever it is, like everything else they own, people around here share it wilingly.
Small Town America is paradise after living in all those vile socialist cesspools for so many years.
If the opportunity presents itself - MOVE!
160 acres is a quarter section; 640 acres is a full section, also equal to one square mile.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected on the size of a section, thanks!
ReplyDeleteSmall town America is where my future is. Congrats on achieving it!