The Price of Farmland

Returning to the topic of land purchases remotely related to Ainsworth (yes, I still do sometimes pretend to be writing this blog about Ainsworth), I'm a bit surprised to notice how little noise has been made by the family of Fremont and Carrie Price — surprised, because they had nine children, and look what an impact Henry Chester and his three wives made with the same number. Apparently the Price children were better behaved. I've found occasion to mention the Prices only when their chicken coop got raided in 1916 and when Fremont served as treasurer for the Ross Township Red Cross drive in the spring of 1918.

Now the Prices get into the papers for the respectable activity of buying the Ross Township land they had farmed as renters for the past 12 years or so; namely, 80 acres at the northwest corner of (present-day) Colorado St. and 69th Ave., belonging to Willard O. Halsted.

(Click on image to enlarge)
The Price farm as it appeared (all 77 acres of it) in the 1926 Plat Book.

The Prices paid $150 an acre for that land. That may have been high, but they were buying "one of the best pieces of farming land in Lake county." ("At least," added the Crown Point Star, "Mr. Price is of that opinion as this year the tract produced wheat that averaged 50 bushels to the acre.") Fremont intended to build a bungalow on the southeast corner of the land, and, according to the Gazette, "become a full-fledged citizen of that community" — whatever community that might be, between Merrillville and Ainsworth.

The Prices already owned land in Montana, a wheat ranch of some 480 acres near Big Sandy. In 1916, they proudly reported that their three eldest sons (Harry, Ray and Gordon) were managing that ranch with great success. A year later their next eldest son, James, followed in his brothers' footsteps to the Montana ranch.

In June 1918 James enlisted in the military; within a month he was in France, and soon in action.

Just about the time that they closed on their farmland purchase, the Prices received a letter from James, dated October 18. He told them he had been wounded in action October 2 — a German bullet in the shoulder — but he was already recovered, and "ready again for the trenches."


Sources:
♦ 1926 Plat Book.
♦ "Another Lake County Hero." Hobart Gazette 27 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 5 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 22 Nov. 1918.
♦ "Price Boys Making Good." Hobart Gazette 14 Jan. 1916..