Our main source will be Eleanor H. Hinman’s 1934 bulletin, History of Farm Land Prices in Eleven Nebraska Counties 1873–1933. The eleven counties surveyed include seven southeastern counties: Clay, Fillmore, Otoe, Polk Seward, Saline, and York. Obviously, the information provided in this publication will be more than a little relevant to our question.
1. We estimated earlier that Peter D probably paid in the vicinity of $5 an acre for the 80 acres that he presumably purchased from the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad company (here). Data recorded in the Hinman bulletin implies that we were not far off, as the average land prices for the seven southeastern counties indicates (Hinman 1934, table 4, 24):
| 1873 |
$8
|
| 1874 |
$7
|
| 1875 |
$7
|
| 1876 |
$6
|
| 1877 |
$7
|
| 1878 |
$7
|
| 1879 |
$7
|
| 1880 |
$8
|
| 1881 |
$9
|
| 1882 |
$11
|
Peter D purchased his land in 1879, when the average price was $7 an acre, so we are safe to assume that he spent around $560 for the entire 80 acres. Not to be forgotten is that Peter D homesteaded an additional 80 acres and owned it free and clear several years before he died.
2. If Peter D’s son Peter P bought all the land that his siblings and mother inherited when Peter D died in 1897, he no doubt paid considerably more than the original price (Hinman 1934, table 4, 24):
| 1889 |
$22
|
| 1890 |
$22
|
| 1891 |
$24
|
| 1892 |
$28
|
| 1893 |
$31
|
| 1894 |
$31
|
| 1895 |
$30
|
| 1896 |
$28
|
| 1897 |
$25
|
| 1898 |
$26
|
Interestingly, the peak land price during this period was in 1893 and 1894, after which prices fell by about 18 percent over the next four years. The price drop reflected a severe nation-wide depression and crippling drought (see further here). Assuming the 1898 prices, Peter P probably purchased the remaining part of the inheritance for $26 an acre, or around $3,950, over seven times his father Peter D’s original investment.
Although he had paid far more than his father had originally invested, Peter P did okay, since when he sold the 160 acres of the original Buller farm sometime between 1916 and 1923 (see further here), he received top dollar (Hinman 1934, table 4, 24):
| 1914 |
$110
|
| 1915 |
$106
|
| 1916 |
$109
|
| 1917 |
$119
|
| 1918 |
$128
|
| 1919 |
$152
|
| 1920 |
$180
|
| 1921 |
$165
|
| 1922 |
$136
|
| 1923 |
$129
|
The best year to sell would have been 1920, when Peter P’s original $3,950 investment would have fetched him $28,800, a sevenfold increase. Even if Peter P received only $109 an acre, he still would have received a sum of $17,440.
3. Peter P, of course, did not sit on his cash but rather invested in other land closer to home (i.e., the Epp farm where he and Margaretha moved when they married in 1890). We do not know if Peter P and Margaretha purchased the 160 acres of the Epp farm or if it was given to them (more on that in a later post), but we do know that they actively purchased additional land: 80 acres to the north of their place by 1916 and 320 acres more on various sections within a several-mile radius from the home farm, for a total of 560 acres by 1924.
It is impossible to know precisely how much they paid for each parcel, but since most of the land was probably acquired during the 1914–1923 period, we might guess that they paid an average of $133 an acre. Leaving aside the 160 acres of the home Epp farm, we might reasonably project that Peter P and Margaretha invested $53,200 in land during this time. For the early part of the twentieth century, that was a lot of money—and it could not have been covered entirely by Peter P’s profit on the sale of the Buller family farm. He obviously had other money available. Where he may have gotten that money will be the subject of a future post (or two).
If you are getting the impression that Peter P and Margaretha were wealthy, you would not be wrong. That conclusion is supported by another bulletin from the University of Nebraska, College of Agriculture, Experiment Station, this one titled Types of Farming in Nebraska (Hedges and Elliott 1930). Here the authors show the average sizes of farms in various areas of the state of Nebraska. Area 3, Southern Cash Grain and Livestock Area, is the one that interests us.
Clearly, the most common farm size was between 100 and 174 acres: roughly 42 percent in 1925. The next biggest group was 175–259 acres (23 percent), followed by 260–499 acres (17 percent). Only 3 percent of all farmers in these counties had farm holdings larger than 500 acres—which means that Peter P and Margaretha, with their 560 acres of farmland, were among the largest landowners of their area.
I never would have imagined that Peter P and Margaretha were so wealthy, but the numbers do not permit any other conclusion. Our family had come a long way from the days of wandering Benjamin and landless David, and our story is even richer than many of us ever knew.
Our ongoing exploration of what U.S. farm economics can tell us about our family will continue by asking briefly whether Peter P and Margaretha bought or were given the Epp family farm, then turn to Grandpa Chris and Grandma Malinda’s acquisition of the Lushton farm. How much per acre do you imagine they paid for their 40 acres?
Hinman, Eleanor H. 1934. History of Farm Land Prices in Eleven Nebraska Counties 1873–1933. Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station Research Bulletin 72. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, College of Agriculture, Experiment Station. Available online here.
Hedges, Harold, and F. F. Elliott. 1930. Types of Farming in Nebraska. Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station Research Bulletin 244. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, College of Agriculture, Experiment Station. Available online here.
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