Disappearing Homesteads

This is a 20th Century homestead located in Natrona County, Wyoming. And it's a nice one.

It was probably built in the teens or twenties. The house is small, but it had steam heat. It also had a concrete cistern. The small stout barn has the name of the owners proudly burnt into the beams. In short, the homesteaders were prosperous. . . but only for awhile.

The Great Depression did this homestead in. It failed, and a neighboring rancher bought it from the bank. This is the story of homesteading all over the West in the 1930s. Thousands of small homesteads were consolidated into larger, neighboring ones. While I've never seen any figures on it, it would be my guess that the average actual working ranch in Wyoming today is probably made up of the remnants of at least five other ranches, all of which would have gone belly up during the Great Depression.

There was a lot at work creating this. The weather, the economy, and mechanization. The impact on the land, however, was enormous. Hundreds of families moved off the land, and into towns and cities, forever.