Montana town for sale, just $1.4 million
(CBS News) For $1.4 million, you might be able to get a nice two-bedroom, two-bath home in Los Angeles, or a two-bedroom apartment in New York City. But in Montana, it'll get you the entire town of Pray.
Barbara Walker owns all five acres of Pray, Montana. She collects rent from the ten other people who live there.
"I'm a one woman show," Walker said. "So I decided OK, if I have to be the maintenance man and garbage man and sanitarian then I'm going to be the mayor too!"
Founded in 1909, Pray is named after a Montana congressman. Walker's family has run it since 1953, and not much has changed. The general store seems frozen in time. Before a new highway was built, this was a popular stop on the road that leads to Yellowstone National Park.
Walker lost her husband Johnny to cancer in 2006. Trying to revive the town alone was just too much work. She's selling the entire town, including her house at action next month. Last month, the town of Buford, Wyoming sold in just 11 minutes during an Internet auction. A Vietnamese man bought the one person town for $1 million.
Pray is like a lot of frontier towns, built on big hopes as the railroads pushed west. Many of those towns are now long gone, but Pray has kept its name on the map for one single reason - the post office.
"A zip code. That's it, plain and simple," Walker said. "It was the reason for Pray becoming Pray in 1909 and that's the reason it's called a town today."
When you pull into the tiny town of less than a dozen people, the post office is the first thing you notice. The zip code on the front of the building is a point of pride for people.
Walker plans to move and open a billiards school in nearby Bozeman, Montana. She said it's not going to be easy to leave. "Time to close this chapter and let someone else take it to the next level."
The town will go to the highest bidder on June 27.
