They Laughed at Her $185 Bid on the Dead Pasture — Then the State Bought It as a Wildlife Refuge
They Laughed at Her $185 Bid on the Dead Pasture — Then the State Bought It as a Wildlife Refuge On October 14, 1988, in the drafty community hall of Garrison County, Elara Vance, age 72, bought 42.7 acres of useless land with a final bid of one hundred and eighty-five dollars. Thirty-four years and five months later, the State of Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources acquired that same parcel, officially designated Lot 7, for the sum of $1,250,000 to establish the Vance Prairie Wildlife Refuge. This is not a story about the money. The money is just the number that marks the beginning and the end of the argument. The story is about the quiet, unyielding work that happened in the years between the two numbers. #TheQuietFarmer #HeirloomCorn #SeedContest #CountyFair #OpenPollinated #OldFarmTales
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The Auction House Listed Her Quilt Box at $200 — One Curator Saw What Was Folded Inside
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She Married the Weakest Farmer in Town — Then He Built the Smartest Irrigation System
The Foundry Dumped Cast Iron at His Fence for 13 Years — He Built a Cookware Brand for Le Creuset
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Homeless at 23, She Bought a $10 Stagecoach Inn—What She Found in the Root Cellar Shocked All
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She Grew Strawberries in Old Flour Barrels — And Made the Sweetest Farm on the Frontier
She Had Nowhere Left to Go—Until He Said, “Come Home and Eat Supper”
The Brick Plant Dumped Broken Bricks Behind His Barn for 14 Years — He Built a Pizza Oven Empire
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They Laughed When She Pastured Her Chickens Behind the Cattle — Then the Worm Resistance Spread
