When Cars Came to Farm, ‘Towns Began to Shrink’

Raymond Frye has spent all of his 91 years in Kansas and has been a keen observer of the drastic changes in rural life.

Born to homesteaders when William McKinley was in the White House, Frye has always felt a close kinship with the land.

“My dad and mother farmed 80 acres with horses and mules, and I remember when they passed up the chance to buy another 80 acres for $300 because they were afraid they’d lose it because of the debt.”

He went through eight grades in a one-room school, then worked as a janitor and a waiter while taking high school courses at what is now Kansas State University.

“But I had to quit in 1919 to come home and get the wheat in that fall.” He eventually was graduated from Anthony High School.

Horse-Drawn Days

“When we drove the team to Anthony, which was nine miles away, we took our lunch because it was an all-day trip. It was a subsistence life; people had to make their living right there,” Frye said.

“When we got cars the towns began to shrink. Transportation meant freedom.”

As times got tougher on the farm in the 1920s, Frye supplemented his income by teaching grade school in Freeport in south-central Kansas.

“It had a bank and a post office, three grocery stores, a hotel, and was a thriving wheat community. Now it’s down to a dozen families.”

As the Great Depression oppressed the land, Frye finally got his degree from Kansas State in 1930. He finished college in two years and worked for wages 100 hours a month to support himself and his bride.

He taught vocational agriculture in small Kansas towns for 13 years, then became the Sumner County extension agent based in Wellington, the county seat, a town of 8,300 people about 35 miles south of Wichita.

Winter Wheat Capital

Although drought has decimated this year’s crop, Sumner County regularly produces more hard red winter wheat than any other county in the nation. In 1880, as a major stop on the Chisholm Trail and the Santa Fe Railroad, it was home to 20,886 people. Today the county has 26,000 residents.

“In the ‘40s, after the war, things got better for farmers, and in the ‘50s and ‘60s life was pretty good,” Frye recalled. “Then, I watched as many people thought bigger was better and started thinking they needed $100,000 tractors and $100,000 combines.

“The machinery was good-looking and there was pride of ownership, but that’s when they got into trouble. I wasn’t really surprised when the bottom fell out (in the 1980s), only sad to watch it go.”

A widower without children, Frye has lavished his leisure time and extra money on a modern building to house Sumner County’s 4-H activities, extension agents and home economists. He believes in earning a living off the land, but his long life has given him a sense of realism about the future of rural America.

“Farming will continue; our production will continue, but small towns will die out. It’s too bad, but I guess that’s what they call progress.”