For a hundred years, the small family farm has slowly been replaced by conglomerates owned by large agribusinesses. All across the Great Plains, generations of independent farmers have been forced off the land, or passed away, leaving no one to carry on. The cost of farm machinery, changing climatic conditions, and encroaching urban expansion have all created an economic situation that has made it difficult for the small agronomist to survive. The gold and silver mines that brought thousands of fortune-hunters to towns with names like Mystic, Cripple Creek and Silver Queen have also been shut down and abandoned, mostly burned down, fallen down or torn down.
Exploring the backroads and byways, James Parker has spent ten years documenting our vanishing entrepreneurial past in these photographs. These images of days gone by remind us of a more peaceful prairie, one not encumbered by fracking and natural gas exploration, or towering farm cooperative silos. Two-lane gravel roads criss-cross our countryside, delineating the sections and homestead lines from another time. Ranch and farm, small town mills and elevators, and railroad spurs now silent save for the whistle of the wind dot the landscape.
There is a peacefulness inherent in these photographs. The wide open spaces that originally drew our ancestors draw us now, with their broad horizons and blue skies. Fencelines and homesteads still endure long after the families that built them have moved on. Standing on the edge of the prairie, one gets the sense that nothing much has changed, yet change is constant. These photographs help us to remember what we value most about our agrarian past, and perhaps can reclaim again.