MPR: Dying Towns

Dying Towns
By Dan Gunderson
February 24, 1999

The financial woes of farmers mean serious trouble for the small towns built around a farm economy.

Many small towns have been in slow decline for decades, kept alive mainly by the money farmers spend and the taxes they pay. Now as many small town leaders watch the farm economy crumble around them, they're wondering how they will survive.

LIKE MANY SMALL TOWNS ALONG MINNESOTA'S WESTERN EDGE, Argyle has outlasted the reason for its existence.

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Argyle is here because James J. Hill built a railroad from St. Paul to Winnipeg. Steam engines needed regular stops to refuel, so towns sprang up every 10 or 15 miles.

Farmers from the surrounding area came to town to sell what they produced, and buy what they needed. The ubiquitous grain elevators still tower over Main Street..

But trains only stop here now when there's grain to be hauled to market, and it's only a 40- minute drive to shop at Walmart or Target in Grand Forks.

Today the cafe is the biggest draw as farmers stop for coffee or lunch. About 600 people live in well-kept homes on quiet tree-lined streets that end abruptly in farm fields.

The population has been falling steadily for years. And now the lifeblood of the community is ebbing away. 30% of area farmers have gone out of business in the last three years - a trend that shows no signs of slowing.

Rivard: I'd like to keep an optimistic feeling about our community, but I'm scared. I'm concerned.

Glenn Rivard is Mayor of Argyle and helps run a family-owned seed and feed business.

Rivard: One of the big concerns we have is how do you attract business that is not ag-related, or ag-related as far as that goes that requires numbers? When you don't have people, how do you bring the people back out here?

At the Argyle State Bank, the same question troubles Jim Feller. Feller has been watching his loan portfolio steadily shrink for several years. He says it's unlikely Argyle will ever be what it once was.

Feller: Once you've lost that downtown business, you're not going to get them back. The bulk dealer you've lost. You're not going to get them back. The implement dealer. You're not going to get them back. The fertilizer business you lose. They're not going to come back.

Feller says for small towns like Argyle, the future may depend on finding small manufacturing companies that can employ 30 or 40 people. But he says, in the present economic environment, that's difficult.

Feller: We go out and find a business that may be interested. They come and look and see it's based on agriculture-farming business. They're hesitant to come in here because of that. Unstable prices, unstable crops. It's hard to get anyone to come in here right now.

Every business in Argyle is dependent to some degree on agriculture. Even the cafe survives only because of the patronage of farmers. But Jim Feller says most farmers in this area have less money to spend now than at any time in the last 50 years. The economic noose is starting to tighten around what remains of Main Street.

Darrald Mercil is one of the survivors.

Mercill: Within a 20- mile radius 15 years ago there were five lumber-yards. Now we're the only one.

Mercil has operated Argyle Home Supply for 23 years. He says five years ago much of his business was farm-equipment storage sheds and grain bins. This year most of his business will be home construction in communities miles away from Argyle. Mercill says he's stayed in business by working harder for the same income.

Mercil: We're going twice as far as we used to captivate the same audience. Our population is shrinking and we still need a certain amount of business. We just have to go out and get it.

Mercil hopes this year farmers will get a good crop and a decent price, but he says farmers are more cautious than he's ever seen.

Argyle Mayor Glenn Rivard worries the caution is becoming pessimism. He says a lot of very successful farmers are talking about not rolling the dice again; simply walking away before they lose everything.

He says Argyle won't survive without farmers on the land, and he wonders who will farm in the future.

Rivard says his fears were reinforced when he recently spoke to a group attending an event in Argyle.

Rivard: And I asked them: "how many of you come from the farm?" And three people out of 60 raised their hands. And then I said: " how many of you have ancestry that comes from the farm?" And almost everyone raised their hands. We're losing it; losing the connection to the countryside we used to have.

The railroad built Argyle and countless other small towns. The question now is: are family farmers and the small towns they sustain destined to the same fate as the steam locomotive?

Dan Gunderson covers the Red River Valley for Minnesota Public Radio as part of MPR's Mainstreet unit. Reach him at dgunderson@mpr.org

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