Belle Fourche
South Dakota
May 2015
Highpointers find great value in lists. I mean, how else do you keep track of the number of state high points you have summited. Highpointers, I surmise, are somewhat compulsive, goal oriented, slightly geeky and fact/trivia-oriented. So not only do we seek high points and keep track of them, but some of us visit county high points or even low points, and of course, we make lists of them too. We even go for extremes: oldest person, fastest summiting, youngest person, dogs, most in 24 hours. Given this dorkdom, it shouldn’t seem odd that Lisa and I choose to visit the centermost, the nucleus, the hub. The heart. Something on our list of one: the geographic center.
Actually of interest to us are two locations at the center, one of the United States and the other of the North American continent.
I thought of a third location — the center of the world, y’know, inside the sphere — but that, of course, is too hot, even for a thermophile like me.
Belle Fourche, South Dakota. Belle Fourche is French for “beautiful fork,” and you may pronounce it “Bell Forsh,” “Bell For Chay” or “Bell Foosh.” Pronounce it “Bell Foosh” if you want to do it as do the locals.
The Center of the Nation Visitor Center and Tri-State Museum is located in the northern region of the city of Belle Fourche, just a little more than a mile north of the Dairy Queen. Within the building you will find the regular museum-type stuff from western South Dakota, eastern Wyoming and southeast Montana, including more than 5000 artifacts of the Old West: rodeo memorabilia, archival records, antiques and collectibles, fossils and a pantload of other items. Large animal heads are on display above eye level on several walls. Outside the museum is the original cabin built and lived in by Johnny Spaulding, a hunter, guide and scout who came to the Black Hills to find gold. Pioneers used the cabin as a safe haven. It’s all quite historical.
Go out the back door of the Visitor Center to the large courtyard with manicured lawns and a 21-foot diameter compass rose made of etched South Dakota granite. Flagpoles abound, flying flags of all fifty states plus one for the USA. The Belle Fourche River flows quietly behind.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration marker has been placed in the middle of the compass. This marker is different from the hundreds of others I have seen over the years. Those hundreds were engraved with block letters, partially to extremely weathered and generally boring. This one is lettered in script and has a line-drawing depiction of a horse with a rider who can barely stay mounted, his hat already airborne. Looking at the curving lines and somewhat abstract nature of the design, and sprinkling in a little imagination, you can almost see that it’s a dirty picture. We choose not to see it this way. The phrase “Where you and the West are one” is part of the medallion. Like I said, I’m choosing not to see the picture as being pornographic.
This spot was designated by the National Geodetic Survey as the center location of the fifty united states. I marvel at the fates that placed the center of the nation in the yard of the Visitor Center, in such a convenient place. No I don’t. Because it isn’t.
The “true center” of our country is actually 20.6 miles north of here as the crow flies, or 23.4 miles as the crow drives. The “true center” is on private property and the landowner does not want to develop this as an attraction, so the monument is located here in Belle Fourche, which is way more convenient for the tourists.
From this ersatz “Geographic Center of the Nation,” Lisa and I jump in the car and take off north on Highway 85, straight as can be. Fourteen miles later, we turn left onto Old Highway 85. A snowy owl, unlikely this time of year, flies low over our heads, close enough to hear the wind through his feathers, glancing at us over his shoulder. I thought he was going to say something.
We pass no one on this dirt road. Seven and a half miles into this remote place, we pull over to the side of the road and stop the car. It’s not the end of the road, not a pullout, not a lot. We deem this a good place to stop however because to keep going would no doubt sink us to a halt in the enormous sucking mud puddle that has engulfed the road before us and, we’re sure, has no bottom.
It is obvious that the rest of the journey to our destination will take place in some depth of roadside sludge. Not an issue; we only have to walk about five hundred feet.
As we reach for our boots we are approached by a South Dakotan driving his four-wheeler. Flannel shirt, heavy duty blue jeans, sun-beaten wizened skin, work boots. After a couple of tight circles he pulls right up beside us.
“You folks coming in to see the center of it all, are ye?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Well, just go on up the side of the road to the gate. You can kind of see the stick in the mud, you betcha yah. It’s right across from the barn, oh sure.”
“Yeah, we see it. Thanks.”
“Maybe you’d like me to take you up there, so you don’t get too muddy. Oh sure, don’cha know.” His vehicle looks like a turbocharged golf cart, like it can get through anything. I think he was showing off earlier with his loop de loops.
Really? This guy is offering us a ride through the mud to save us a few steps and some muddy walking. The locals in this part of the country have been friendly, helpful, warm and inviting. They seem to be happy just to see us. It’s the tourists who are cold and disagreeable.
“Wow, thanks. But we’re okay. We’ll walk. It’s just some mud.”
“Well, okie dokie then. Stay to the side, ya know. Footing will be easier. Bye. Oh yeah.” And with that, he’s up the road and gone. You betcha.
Boots on feet, we exit the car and start up the road. It’s generally quiet here, just a little wind and lots of birdsong. We’re in the middle of an expansive field of nothing in particular in a sparsely populated area of South Dakota, the nearest town twenty-three and a half miles distant as the crow drives.
Like he said, the walking is easier on the side of the road. We sink in the mud only a few inches. The puddles we walk around have to be deep enough to submerge a cow. If that’s your idea of a good time.
Here’s a cairn. Bunnies live here. If I didn’t know better I would say they are paying homage to the center of the land. Maybe I do know better.
The stone monument is taller than a person, if it’s a very short person.
We’re here. This is it, “The True Center of the Nation,” as the sign says.
Um, well, actually, we’re not. It’s over there at the pole.
It seems safer for us to climb over the pipe gate than to try to negotiate ourselves over the barbed wire fence. Barbed wire doesn’t negotiate. Over the gate we go and plop! right into four inches of mud.
The pole we’ve been eyeing on this side of the fence is a flagpole, sans flag. A few more pieces of sewer pipe are lying in the mud. I’ll bet someone has in mind to erect a more negotiable entry to the real pole, the pole in the center of it all, which is about a hundred fifty feet into the pasture.
What kind of pasture? Cow. Or since we see cows only at a great distance, this is more like a cow patty pasture. Hard to tell the difference between the regular mud and the cow patties. This hundred-fifty feet from the fence to the pole is among the muddiest, shit-kickingest field we’ve ever hiked. Lisa says it’s like wearing four-inch heels. (How does she know that? She never wears four-inch heels.) Sticky, clumpy Houdek soil which accumulates on the bottoms of our boots. Walking feels like we’re wearing clown shoes with the clown still in them. Every step, squish, squash, splush.
Squashing and splushing through the mud for 150 feet brings us to our ultimate destination, at the one inch diameter, ten foot tall flagpole-without-a-flag, sunk into a square cement footing. Carved on the anchor pad is the number “1959,” the year this pole was put into position. Sometimes an American flag flies from the top of the pole, not today.
Embedded in the pad is the metal United States Coast & Geodetic Survey (USCGS) reference mark. This benchmark was placed in 1962. Being a reference mark means this isn’t the place. At first, I thought this was the place. The arrow in the center of the mark points to the USCGS triangulation station mark, twenty feet to the northwest, which is the place. The word center is engraved on this mark. It was in 1959 when the USCGS officially designated this spot to be the geographic center of the U S of A.
It was 1959 when Hawaii and Alaska became states, which you can imagine, moved the center considerable.
Huzzah! This is it. Equal amounts of America in every direction. We prance around in the mud in celebration…
…and then look for the third mark — having a triangulation mark implies there are three markers. There aren’t.
We listen to the countless birds of unidentified species and variety. We marvel at the weight of the mud on our boots, how heavy our footfall is. We are in the middle of a cow pasture, in the middle of the country.
Maybe.
Back at the fence is that white welcome sign. “The True Center of the Nation,” it says in red and blue paint. Interesting, and somewhat suspicious that the reverse side of the sign reveals that this was a standard yellow and black road sign, one with a curving arrow.
Hmm… We are suspicious because of the street nature of this sign and for other reasons as well. What I am saying is that this True Center of the Nation may not be the true center of the nation. This is because the United States…
. is, geometrically, a very peculiar shape — it’s not a rectangle, a rhombus, nothing like that. It’s… United States-shaped
. has uneven terrain
. includes lots of bodies of water which are different shapes, sizes and distribution
. has an ever-changing shoreline, by the very nature of water meeting land
. is on a curved surface (the exterior layer of the Earth)
When trying to figure out where the center is, there is the question of whether to include offshore islands, of which there are… How many? Right. Can’t tell. Too many to count, and some days they are under water and some days not.
Similarly with the American owned territories of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Virgin Islands and eleven more. They are part of America, but they are not the same as states.
Actually, finding the center of something like the United States is a mathematical problem that can’t be solved. Even though the USCGS officially designated this spot to be the geographic center of the U S in 1959, it doesn’t hold any real-life cred.
Notice that the defining of this unique point has been “designated to be” and not “determined to be.”
This doesn’t stop us geeks. Imagine that the United States was a flat plane of uniform thickness. Then find a point on which this plane could balance on a single fulcrum. That’s the center of gravity and therefore the center of the country. Should be easy. You try it.
Or attach a rope to a sky hook and hang the United States at this point. The country will hang level, balanced, not tipping in any direction. This is your center. Try this one too.
If you do this, be sure to let me know. I’d like to watch.