Billionaires are increasingly stepping in to plug gaps in services, education, and opportunity that many small towns say have been ignored for years. While Washington remains gridlocked over how to revive areas left behind by industrial and demographic change, a growing class of wealthy donors is quietly reshaping the economic future of the countryside with nine-figure checks and thousands of acres of land.​

Minnesota billionaire Glen Taylor, who built Taylor Corp. into a printing empire and became his state’s wealthiest resident, is now redirecting a significant slice of his fortune back to the rural communities that raised him. The 84-year-old former dairy farm kid from outside Comfrey, Minnesota (pop. 376 as of 2024), is transferring farmland and securities worth roughly $100 million into the Taylor Family Farms Foundation, with a specific mandate to support rural areas in Minnesota and Iowa.​

Rather than offering a one-time cash infusion, Taylor’s gift is structured to generate income for years, building on a 2023 transfer of about $173 million in farmland that already funds grants through regional nonprofit partners. Taylor said the move is rooted in his own upbringing in southern Minnesota, where he worked on farms and raised chickens, and in a desire to “make a positive impact on the lives of others in a region that I love so much,” Taylor said in a statement to the Observer.​

Billionaire rural wave

Taylor is part of a broader pattern in which ultrawealthy donors are focusing explicitly on small-town and rural America rather than the big-city universities and museums that long dominated philanthropy. Investment banker Byron Trott, who grew up in Union, Missouri, has pledged $150 million to a network of universities to boost enrollment from rural students, a push that has already helped drive a 20% increase in applications.​

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has similarly turned her attention to rural education, donating $36 million to North Carolina institutions such as Robeson Community College and Bladen Community College to bolster opportunities in some of the country’s poorest counties. Together, these gifts signal a recognition among billionaires that the country’s economic and political fault lines increasingly run between thriving metros and struggling rural regions—and that private money can move faster than federal policy.​

Trump’s administration has announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers in the wake of a wipeout amid his tariff regime, particularly for soybeans. At one point in 2025, as Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced support for like-minded ally Javier Milei in Argentina, China cut its U.S. soybean purchases to zero and began buying them from Argentina instead. After a Trump-Xi summit, China resumed soybean purchases, and more recently Argentina has repaid its full $20 billion credit line. Kentucky soybean farmer Caleb Ragland told the Associated Press in early January that Trump’s aid for farmers was “a Band-Aid on a deep wound. We need competition and opportunities in the market to make our future brighter.”

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.

The reopening around midday came three months ahead of schedule, and business owners say that should give travelers plenty of time to plan their spring and summer road trips.

“Today is a monumental milestone for us,” said a relieved Colin Twohig, general manager of the Big Sur River Inn. “We’re hitting the light at the end of the tunnel after three long years.”

The first shutdown came in January 2023 when a series of powerful atmospheric rivers triggered a major landslide. The highway was buried again the following year during another wet winter, when a lane also collapsed down a cliff near the Rocky Creek Bridge.

The traffic stoppage between Carmel and Cambria cut off access to Big Sur, an isolated stretch of the state’s central coast where misty, forested mountains rise up from the ocean. What used to be a short drive between the southern and northern sections — with tiny Big Sur Village roughly in the middle — became an eight-hour trek inland and then back toward the seashore.

The isolated area, home to fewer than 2,000 residents, is known for its panoramic hiking trails along high cliffs and craggy beaches where seals and sea lions sometimes sprawl out. The late “Tropic of Cancer” author Henry Miller lived there for nearly two decades starting in the 1940s, and there’s now a library devoted to his work.

Highway 1 is famously a must for California visitors traveling between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Twohig said he looks forward to seeing tourists in cars and motorhomes back on the road.

Twohig estimated that his inn, with 22 guest rooms, a large restaurant and a general store, saw a 20% drop in business. He said the road closure directly following COVID-19 restrictions was a one-two punch. The inn spent the down time making improvements and marketing heavily to entice California residents to visit during the off-seasons.

“When you have a hospitality business, you really rely on the busy season, and when there is no busy season, it can be a hard pill to swallow,” he said. “Having that lifeline back is huge.”

There were multiple closures at various locations throughout the past three years, and the last stretch that remained shut was a 7-mile (11-kilometer) span near Lucia, according to the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the opening on social media, thanking Caltrans for the speedy work in “reviving a vital economic lifeline for local business owners and residents affected by the closure.”

Caltrans, which has called Highway 1 the jewel of the state highway system, placed steel and concrete to shore up the collapsed cliffside.