Hazelton

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. –Oscar Wilde

When I was blogging in Fort Collins,  I was concerned with problems caused by gentrification, new urbanism, and development in general–the town seemed to be racing to shut out its working class and hide signs of its agricultural past.

But now I’m in North Dakota,  and little of that matters.  Here, we worry about  losing historic resources, not to development but to neglect. And we worry about losing population and declining property values as the young people move away to places like, well, Fort Collins.

In fact, towns worry about it a lot here.  I started learning about “brain drain” reading this fascinating blog out of South Dakota. Then, in my first week here, it became front page news when a Miami family gave up on Hazelton, North Dakota.

The short version of the story is this: Hazelton, a town of about 250, offered free land and even some money to anyone who would settle there. The town’s one taker, a family from Florida, stayed for 4 years and then decided to leave. The Tristani’s cited small-town cliquishness among their reasons for leaving. People were unfriendly; they gave dirty looks and talked about you behind your back. There was even some talk that Mr. Tristani had been slipped a mickey at the bar.

The AP story appeared well beyond North Dakota’s borders, and everyone was taking sides. The town was a bunch of unworldly, racist Germans. No. The Tristani’s were a bunch of gold chain-wearing city folk who underestimated the rigors of North Dakota life.

Who knows? But for our weekend something-to-do,  John and I drove to Hazelton.  It’s about 50 miles south of Bismarck…just down the Lawrence Welk highway.

Lawrence Welk highway leads to Strasburg, ND--Birthplace of Grandma's favorite entertainer.

The landscape is beautiful on a sunny February day, with rolling snow-covered prairie lightly spiced with stands of trees.

If you put Hazelton near a large town, it would be a primo candidate for gentrification. It’s a compact, walkable town of old houses with a bar, a gas station, and a coffee shop. And with Linton and Moffit more than 10 miles away,  you could say it’s got a green belt around it. But here,  half the houses are abandoned, and the sign says the coffee shop is only open for three hours in the morning–if it’s really open at all. There’s a gorgeous old school, but like everything else in North Dakota, it’s since been replaced by an uninteresting steel structure–the same construction they use for all 21st century barns, factories, etc.

I didn’t stay long, and I didn’t talk to anyone. But John saw a local he knew in the gas station.  ”We came to Hazelton because we’ve been reading about it in the paper,” John said.

“We don’t want to talk about it anymore,” the local said.

Okay. We won’t talk about it. But I will say this, Hazelton:  Having just come from 15 years of living, working, and volunteering in Fort Collins, I think there’s something to be said for living in a place so small that the world notices when you leave.

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Looking from the new school toward the Hazelton water tower.