A Milwaukee businessman, Cephas Buttles became aware of Lewiston through his brother-in-law David Kneeland, the president of Kneeland and Bigelow Lumber Company. In 1901 Buttles purchased 25,000 acres of cutover timberlands and started the Home Colony Company, intent on populating the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. Buttles built the 1,200-acre Angusdale Stock Farm in 1902 as a model for his company, and he featured photographs of it in his sales literature. The promise of cheap fertile land and winter job opportunities at local mills lured former lumbermen, miners, and immigrants - primarily Scandinavians - to the area. By the 1920s, however, the topsoil became depleted of nutrients and Lewiston's land boom ended.
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