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Fossils On The Prairie.Pdf, Chris Laingen

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Between 1935 and 1992, the number of farms in the United States decreased from approximately seven million to fewer than two million. This change left a noticeable imprint on the landscape. Working farmsteads have been reduced to idle, desolate buildings, or in some cases there are no buildings left at all. To study this transformation, black and white air photographs from 1950 were compared with 1990 air photographs. Also, plat books and ground checks in four townships in Watonwan County in southwestern Minnesota helped document changes. Farmsteads were abandoned or demolished because people began to find they could not economically …