It happened. Was a tract of several hundred acres on Bice Mt. ( eastern Madison Co.) that a fellow moved away and let it sell for taxes. It had some fine timber on it , he cut it and moved to Texas , so the story goes. Don't know the year prolly around WW II. Mountain land in our area was selling for less than $20 an acre as recently as the early 70's. Then came the deer and the rest is history. My father told me when he started working at age 20 or so he could buy an acre of mountain land a day with his pay and have $ left.