In 1848 Virgin land could be purchased for $1.25 an acre. Even at that modest price it was more than many immigrants could afford as they had often become greatly indebted to sponsors who had paid their passage to America.
Even Gullord may have felt he found the promised land yet for all the benefits the area had to offer, there were many hardships as well. Coon Prairie men often spent the winters in the Pineries of Northern Wisconsin away from their families. Coon Prairie homes consisted of a log cabin 12 feet square put together without nails. A hard frost in late June of 1854 killed newly planted crops and left the trees bare of leaves. Many settlers survived the next winter by living on potatoes, the only crop that hadn’t been killed by the frost.
In January 1859 the temperature remained at 36º below zero for a week. Epidemics took their toll as well. In 1866 diphtheria, perhaps, raged among the settlers, claiming 194 lives in a few weeks. Half the victims were under five years old. In the earliest years the nearest store was at Prairie du Chien, 50 miles away.
Things began to improve. By the mid 1850s stores were open in La Crosse and Viroqua as well as a general store at ‘Old Town,' just south of present Westby.
In 1866 wages for common labor were from 75¢ to one dollar a day and improved farmland brought $15.00 an acre.
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