David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published March 30, 2004

Free land! But it's in Kansas

It would be irresponsible and unprofessional of me to poke fun at something I don't know anything about. With that in mind, you and I both know that this sentence won't be the last one in this column.

I've never been to Kansas, and it's not on my immediate itinerary. It just doesn't seem all that appealing to me. Apparently I'm not the only one. Kansas isn't all that appealing to people from, well, Kansas.

Some towns in Kansas are so displeasing that they're offering free land to attract residents. Wagons ho! It's a land rush! As they say in those tacky mobile home TV ads, pack your pots and pans and kiss the landlord goodbye! Just be sure to update your tornado insurance and you too can find yourself living in the beautiful Kansas city of Marquette, population 600.

See, there I go again. Poking fun at something I know nothing about. I've never been to Marquette. I'm sure it is a charming town with kind, neighborly folks who are just like you and me -- finding their way through life's joys and troubles. Then again, I'm certain there's a good reason only 600 people live there. Maybe there are many good reasons. So let's continue.

According to the Associated Press story I read, the idea of free land was borrowed from the homesteading days of the 1800s when the promise of free land enticed people to move to the Great Plains from the East Coast and Midwest. It's a good idea, really. Towns do what they must to survive, and more people need to live in Marquette for Marquette to continue on. Marquette may not have a Wal-Mart, a theme park, an NFL franchise or even an Arby's, but what it does have is land. It has lots of land. Land that's not doing anything productive, and it can be yours. All you need to do is ask for it -- that, and move to Marquette.

In fact, I can feel my Great Plains heritage roiling within me right now. Maybe I'll just pack up the wife n' yung'uns and head west. Perhaps we could move next door to Ma and Pa Ingles. My allergies can't tolerate this Knoxville air much longer anyway. I don't know if Marquette's allergy index is all that great, but it's got to be better than Knoxville's. When the air is so bad that you can actually see it, the time may be right for a move.

I can see us now, tooling down the interstate, our minivan's stereo blasting "Don't Fence Me In." A mere 14 hours, 35 minutes and 939.58 miles later (as the Mapquest crow flies), we'll be in downtown Marquette. "Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don't fence me in."

We'll stake our claim on the back 40, front 40, left 40 and right 40. Got an extra 40 lying around? We'll take it. I'll take all the Kansas land I can get. To quote the sage words of arch nemesis Lex Luther in Superman: The Movie, "Stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no [darn] good, but they will always need land, and they will pay through the nose to get it." Lex has yet to steer me wrong. Side note: I recommend you clip this article out right now, this very moment. I dare say you will never again read a newspaper column that quotes Cole Porter and Lex Luther within a few sentences of one another. This will be something to show the grandkids.

Sadly for the Marquettians (well, what would you call them?), the offer of free land has historically been a desperate move that rarely saves such speck-on-the-map towns. According to Frank Popper, an urban studies professor at Rutgers University, similar programs have been tried in one-horse burgs in the Dakotas and Minnesota, but there haven't been many takers or noticeable results.

"One-horse burg" -- now that's not nice. How would I know? I should visit Marquette before I estimate its equine population. Shame on me.

Quick quiz: What's the capital of Kansas? The reflex is blurt out Kansas City, but how wrong we are! Most of Kansas City isn't even in Kansas, and the Chiefs and Royals play in Missouri. Unless you're a sixth-grader who just finished studying for a state capitals test, it would probably take you a few moments to come up with Topeka.

In all seriousness, I must applaud the folks of Marquette for taking the initiative to save their town. It would be easy for them to pack their bags and move to Topeka 140 miles away, but instead they're doing their best to preserve their small town by making sure it doesn't get too small to survive. Like Martha says, "That is a good thing."

Quotes from Martha, Cole and Lex -- now this is the kind of insightful, big-city journalism that, sadly, you won't find in Marquette.

· · ·
David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.