You Can Buy An Entire Town In South Dakota For The Bargain Price Of $400K

Check your pockets and dig into the couch cushions — if you can rustle up some spare change to the tune of $400,000, you could be the owner of your very own town in South Dakota. The man who owns Swett, S.D. — and its bar, single house, workshop, three trailers and 6.16 acres of land — is looking to sell.

Sure, $400,000 is a lot of money for anybody. But instead of just owning a single house, you could crown yourself Grand High Empress/Emperor of this unincorporated hamlet about two hours from Rapid City, reports the Rapid City Journal.

The sole owner of Swett — and one of its two inhabitants, along with his wife — is selling everything in order to focus on his traveling concession business.

“Like I say, I hate to get rid of it,” he said Benson, after listing the town last week. “If I don’t sell it, if I don’t sell it this first year, I would probably keep it.”

Swett used to have as many as 40 people but has now shrunk down to only two residents and handful of buildings. At least the bar sounds like it’s there to stay, as a meeting place for the locals.

“This place is pretty much where the highway ends and the Wild West begins,” joked one patron of the bar’s previous rough reputation, though now it’s not out of place for families to come there for a meal.

As such, the locals still want whoever buys the town to keep the tavern, with its rough charms and all. As one customer remembered, a friend who was passing through from Seattle noted that same local flavor. Which again, can be purchased with the town for $400,000.

“He said, ‘this looks like a good place to be killed’. And I said, ‘you could be killed anywhere, Randy. You could get killed at home feeding your furless cats, at least here it will be exciting’.”

Let me just say that getting killed while feeding furless cats is a very specific and sad way to go. So let’s hope that won’t happen to anyone.

Got a spare $400,000? Buy your own town: Swett, South Dakota [Rapid City Journal]

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