Towns gone, still here

The Best of Stubble Mulch

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Bye, bye, Bushnell.

Adios, Arlington.

See ya later, Sinai – and Volga, too.

These towns, and hundreds of others in our flatland states, could flat-out disappear if a proposal in the state of Georgia catches on here. The Georgia Department of Transportation wants to erase nearly 500 Georgia communities from the state’s official map.

Georgia officials say many of the proposed-to-disappear towns are mere “placeholders” having fewer than 2,500 people. Fewer than 2,500?  

Are they kidding? North and South Dakota have hundreds of these “placeholders.” If they go, so go the states.

The goal of the change in Georgia’s map, we’re told, was to make it appear less cluttered.

If South Dakota’s Department of Transportation has any plans to make our highway map less cluttered, we’d end up with just 22 communities on our map. We could print it on a postcard and save plenty of cash. But I’d kinda’ like to know the way to White Rock or Westport, wouldn’t you?

Over 400 of our small towns listed on our map’s ledger – those having fewer than 2,500 people – would go by the boards. There are probably other quaint little South Dakota towns that aren’t even listed on the ledger. Mystic comes to mind.

North Dakota is hoping the Georgia Plan doesn’t migrate that far up the Missouri River, too. It has 360 towns on its map, and just 15 have more than 2,500 people.  

There was a time when towns were christened by the U.S. Post Office. Any politician worth his or her stripes could get a post office for any town with a main drag. It was a great vote getter.  

South Dakota’s latest highway map has about 430 communities listed. Not all have post offices, but having fewer than 500 towns in our state is a drop in the bucket compared to the good old days when you could establish a town (aka post office) by writing your congressman.

In fact, over the years, in the entire Dakota Territory before it was sliced in two parts north and south, 1,759 “place-holders” with post offices were born and then faded away.

Many were the kitchens of ranch houses in some out-of-the-way place. It was just a few years ago that I found the post office in Lane, S.D., in a residential house. The owner had converted her home into a café. She was not only the restaurant cook, but also the mayor, and Lane’s postmaster. Just off her restaurant area was a miniscule room, probably once a closet, where she reported to federal work each day in her Lane Post Office.

That Lane post office may have survived the times, but most didn’t. From 1869 to 1873, Adelscat was a thriving post office in Union County. In Beadle County, there was Altoona from 1883 to 1888. Lawrence County in the Black Hills once had a town called Cyanide and in Kingsbury County, there was Drakola.

Gone, too, are Gumbo, Ice Box, Lightcap, Montezuma, Porch, Sandwich, TwoBit, Worms and Wo-So-So.  

I wish South Dakota still had the town a settler decided to name Chance. Chance has a nice, western ring to it. It was named when the settler “whoaed” his team and unpacked the family’s meager belongings there on the lonely prairie – taking a chance that they could survive.

They did, at least long enough to acquire a post office.

Now Chance is gone.

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.