These Kentucky residents aren’t interested in selling their land, and there’s evidently not an amount of money in the world that could change their mind.
It’s a tale as old as time. Some big corporation comes to Small Town, America and starts waiving around millions of dollars in an attempt to convince residents to hand over their land. Granted, some people will take the money and run. But for others – like Ida Huddleston and her daughter, Delsia Bare, in Maysville, Kentucky – there’s not an amount of cash that you could offer to make them give up their home.
Though the company’s name is not available, what’s being described as one of the “world’s largest artificial intelligence companies” apparently has its eyes set on some land in Northern Kentucky. They want the sprawling farm land so that they can build a massive data center to further aid their AI development. But there’s only one problem… the residents who own the land aren’t budging.
Ida Huddleston and her family own about 1,200 acres of farmland near Maysville, Kentucky. The land has been in the 82-year-old’s family for generations, and the sentimental value is worth more than any sum of money, as Huddleston’s daughter, Delsia Bare, told WKRC 12:
“My grandfather and great-grandfather and a whole bunch of family have all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it. Even raised wheat through the Depression and kept bread lines up in the United States of America when people didn’t have anything else.”
According to the Huddleston family, an AI company came to their home last year and offered up $26 million for half of the 1,200 acres they own. The land itself is valued at somewhere around $6,000 an acre, so the offer they received was about ten time more than that. Despite that, Ida Huddleston has no interest in selling, and doesn’t believe the AI company when they say building a data center could bring economic growth to the area:
“They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not. We know whenever our food is disappearing, our lands are disappearing, and we don’t have any water—and that poison. Well, we know we’ve had it… I say they’re a liar, and the truth isn’t in them. That’s what I say. It’s a scam.”
I’ve got to say… I love that Ida Huddleston and their family are standing strong and refusing to let an AI data center move in and set up shop on their land.
The company and the town could still opt to built the data center without Huddleston’s land if other landowners in the area are willing to sell. That would likely mean that the Kentucky woman’s property would be located right next to or near the data center, which in turn could hurt their property value. But Huddleston still refuses to give in, because to her and her family, the land they own in the Bluegrass State is priceless.
Does that story sound familiar at all? Ring any bells whatsoever? Specifically in the country music world?
Because if you ask me, it’s eerily similar to the story that Cody Johnson’s “Dirt Cheap” lays out. Think about the intro to that song… a group comes in thinking they could pay “top dollar” to get an old man to move out of his home and off his land for a planned development.
“They came in thinkin’ top dollarTo that old cotton crop farmerThey knocked on his screen door, and he said‘Lord, what you need, boys,’ and they said‘You know all the others went and cashed outWe got the subdivision all mapped outIt’ll sit right here on this landAnd you can leave town a rich man.’And he said, ‘Boys, whatever you’re offerin’, it won’t be enough.’”
In other words, we have a real life “Dirt Cheap” situation playing out in Northern Kentucky, and something tells me that Ida Huddleston’s decision to stand her ground and keep her land would have Cody Johnson’s approval.
“Dirt Cheap” by Cody Johnson
