HUNTINGBURG, Ind. - The sun splashes across Gene Englert's 217-acre farm on a late October day, a last taste of Indian summer before a cold front moves in.

"I think this is about the end of it, " Englert says.

Though his remark is directed at the weather, it could as easily refer to his way of life if the state goes through with plans to build a four-lane bypass around Huntingburg.

The U.S. 231 bypass would cut through the middle of the dairy farm Englert, 67, inheritted from his father, who bought the land in 1937. His wouldn't be the only land affected.

Huntingburg will dry up if there's a bypass around it," he predicts.

And so, Englert says, would the way of life of many farmers in a state that's already losing 100,000 acres of farmland a year to development.

"We don't need to get rid of any more farmland," Englert said. "They just aren't making any more of it. God only made so much."

Huntingburg Mayor Gail Kemp said he sympathizes with the farmers who will be affected if the $252 million bypass is built. But he says the bypass which is still in the study stages, is necessary for progress.

Economic growth in the area has brought a steady increase in traffic - especially trucks - through the heart of town on two-lane U.S. 231. About 1,000 trucks a day pass through, usually on their way to and from I-64 to the south and factories to the north in Jasper.

The Indiana Department of Transportation projects traffic on U.S. 231 will increase 64 percent over the next three decades.

That would compound and existing headache caused by the Norfolk and Southern Railroad.

Two dozen times a day, trains pass through Huntingburg, halting traffic on U.S. 231, the only north-south highway through town.

When the crossing gates come down across the highway near Eight Street in the middle of the afternoon, traffic backs up more than six blocks. At rush hour, or if a train stops to drop off or pick up a load, it's worse.

Hank Menke, co-chairman of the 231 Coalition, a group pushing for improvements to the highway, concedes that a bypass would affect farmers in its path and perhaps some businesses.

"But if you don't have good infrastructure, you're not going to attract business and development."

Menke, who is president of Styline Industries, a furniture maker in Huntingburg, added, "We are going to have to face the music and do something about it."

And ultimately, some people will win and some lose."

But Menke and Kemp say the bypass will increase the value of farmers' land along the bypass.

"You can get me really red in the face when you start talking about urban spraw," said Kemp. "It's a buzzword, and what it means is that a farmer has the opportunity to sell his farm at inflated prices for development, it that's what he wants to do."

"To me, urban sprawl is people who have a place to live and a place to work, and I don't know that I find that particularly unpleasant."

Jim Kennington, who lives in nearby Ferdinand thinks things are fine as they are.

"We've go a rural way of life - a quality of life that's excellent," he said. "We have unemployment that is below 2 percent, good jobs, farmlands, wetlands. We have something very special here in Dubois County."

Kennington, who is on the board of the Hoosier Environmental Council, is urging better land-use planning even as he tries to organize opposition to the bypass.

"We need to take a careful look at what we are giving up and what we are going to gain," he said.

Jim Lammers, who also owns a farm in the path of the proposed bypass, is prepared to fight for the operation that has been in his family since 1866.

"When they come with their bulldozers, I'll be out there with my red flag saying, "You can't have my land."