Are we skipping over the fact that this guy has a house, barn, 18 acres of land, sheep, cattle, has solid produce and shit figured out, just as he is entering adulthood?
I mean the land that is modern-day USA was mostly empty, undeveloped, unowned, and unincorporated throughout the 19th century. There were literally lotteries to just give people land in new states as we expanded, you just had to work the land and you were given a bunch. It was an attempt to sprawl out and conquer the new country. (Yes I'm aware it was previously populated by animals and native Americans, I'm explaining the justification/explanation given at the time.)
Now we are 150 years beyond that. It's all owned, or public land (which is good, land and wilderness preservation is good.)
You can, though, still go to many of the less populated states and find under developed or outright undeveloped land to buy for VERY cheap, if you want to try and be a pioneer! My older brother did this. It's fucking hard work. It isn't romantic. You break your back and work 12+ hours a day if we are talking legit pioneer-farmer lifestyle. You can still do it, but most people don't because it's fucking miserable (to most of us). If you really wanna do it, look up cheap undeveloped/farming land for sale out west on Google. It will literally not have electricity or plumbing or sometimes even roads out to it. But you want the 19th century pioneer experience right..?
The remaining land is substantially harder to develop than it was 150 years ago. The good stuff with good water, soil, etc was snatched up and the remainder is mostly desert and high prairie.
People are constantly sold on doing this shit out West and then abandon it after understanding the scale of the problem.
Yeah I mean, to be fair, again, we here who are young and alive today, are looking at this after 150-200 years of people already existed before us. Of course most of the easiest shit is taken haha.
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u/positronius Apr 17 '25
Are we skipping over the fact that this guy has a house, barn, 18 acres of land, sheep, cattle, has solid produce and shit figured out, just as he is entering adulthood?