Towns that
Outsmarted Depression
written by
jaron summers (c) 2025
Back in the era when the Great Depression swept across the land like a schoolmarm with a ruler and a grudge, two little towns refused to follow the rest of the country into the ditch.
One was called Featherville, and the other was Furrow. Now Featherville, as the name might suggest if you weren’t born yesterday, raised chickens. Not just a few—every yard had hens squawking like congressmen and roosters strutting like they were running for office. The people of Featherville didn’t have money, but by thunder, they had eggs.
Over yonder was Furrow, a cold place where winters came early, overstayed their welcome, and nipped at your knees just to remind you who was boss. But folks in Furrow had something else: fur coats. Mink, fox, rabbit—anything that once blinked at the moon and walked on four legs was fair game, and sewn into a coat fit for a banker or a bootlegger.
Now most towns, when the Depression hit, did one of two things:
- Cried.
- Opened a soup kitchen and cried there.
But not Featherville and Furrow.
One chilly October, a young woman from Furrow wandered into Featherville with a suitcase full of fur and a stomach that sounded like a brass band in rehearsal. In exchange for three dozen eggs and a plump fryer, she left behind a raccoon stole that still had an attitude.
That’s when commerce was reborn—not with money, but with mutual misery and poultry appreciation.
The mayors of both towns—one a wiry man with chicken feathers stuck to his cuffs, the other wrapped in enough beaver pelts to resemble a small brown bear—decided to formalize the operation.
Every Tuesday, wagons from Featherville would cluck their way into Furrow loaded with eggs, drumsticks, and the occasional rooster who didn’t know when to shut up. In return, they’d come back draped in coats that made them look like diplomats from Greenland.
Nobody got rich, but nobody starved or froze either. They survived on the ancient principle of “I got what you need, you got what I want, and neither of us can afford to be stubborn.”
Outsiders laughed. “What kind of fool trades chickens for coats?” they asked.
Winter came, and the outsiders froze their tails off eating boiled shoes and dreams.
The two towns thrived—not because they had money, but because they had sense, skill, and a refusal to suffer stupidly.
And so, when the banks reopened and the cities shook off the dust, the folks of Featherville and Furrow were still warm, still fed, and still trading—though by then, some were doing it for cash and some just out of habit.
The Depression made many humble, but in those two towns, it also made them clever.
