This might be the last best place to live in the United States.

Wessington Springs is way out in the middle of no man’s land farms. You’d never know it was here unless you were intentionally looking for it. It’s at least two hours to get to a place with a decent population. You could call it all farmer porn.

You can see on a map just how rural it is here. People here think North Dakota’s empty, so I guess that’s saying something about how North Dakota is, crowd wise.

Back in the day there was a trail that went right through town which Native Americans and settlers took to go east and west. There’s not a lot of traffic here now, though.

Ain't a single stop light in this damn town. They actually have 6 stop SIGNS. And folks KNOW exactly where the stop signs are. They even fight to have new ones added in.

There are 811 people in Wessington Springs these days, but that’s going down all the time. It’s 300 people smaller than it was just 10 years ago. So at that rate it’ll be gone by 2050.

Times have changed. People don’t have big families anymore these days. Nobody wants to farm anymore - if there’s even any farm jobs around. They’ve all consolidated.

The meatpacking plants all over the state had to close.

These smaller towns were once the backbone of rural South Dakota, but today, they have a huge challenge remaining vibrant. Smaller businesses can’t stay open - and you can blame dollar stores for a lot of that.

There’s limited healthcare out here, though Wessington Springs does have a hospital.

It’s a thing here. More than half of South Dakota’s counties saw a population decline. Look at this chart - back in 1950, two thirds of South Dakotans lived in rural areas just like this. Today, it’s down to a third. (have screenshot).

They’re gonna have to re-think small towns like this or they’ll be irrelevant one day.

#southdakota #moving

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