# Essentials for Your Basic Small Town (a la Western movies) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 2, 2006, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031 "2006-08-02T16:19:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/1 "2006-08-02T16:19:46Z")
On the way to the barber shop about an hour ago the thought hit me that even a small town needs a barber. Then I thought of other essential goods and services for a small town to be moderately self-sufficient: Dentist Restaurant/cafe/diner – some place that prepares meals for those who either can’t or don’t want to cook Funeral Home Something to pass for a health care facility – Doctor’s office maybe Then it occurred to me that in many classic Westerns the town may not have had many of these things. Movies like Shane, High Plains Drifter, Silverado and perhaps even Tombstone (although that was a pretty good-sized town IIRC). Using this basic premise as a jumping off place, limiting “small town” to less than 2000 people, and “modernizing” the town to early 21st Century, what are the necessities for a little town to prosper. Don’t forget that mail-order, truck shipments, catalog services, etc., can help provide some of those less-than-immediately-essential things and that the little town might not have to have a video store, adult sex toys shop, massage parlor, and other things that may be “essential” for city-dwellers. Oh, and please allow this Basic Small Town to be relatively isolated from larger population centers, at least three hours travel. This will keep “bedroom communities” and suburbs from clouding the issue. If it’s something you might really need and you can’t wait longer than three hours to get it when you need it, what ought the little town be able to provide? This is mostly serious, although I can’t expect it to stay that way. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/2 "2006-08-02T17:18:33Z")
From my experience of isolated small towns in Australia, you can get by with just one general store, which has a petrol bowser, an ATM, and a post office agency, and can serve what passes as fast food. No health-care facility at all, except a few people trained in first aid: anything more serious, and you drive or get flown to the nearest hospital or doctor. Certainly no funeral home: not enough business to support one. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/3 "2006-08-02T17:21:38Z")
And the second business in town is likely to be a hotel or motel, which would have a restaurant or dinining room as well as providing somewhere for passing travellers to stay for the night. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/4 "2006-08-02T17:45:36Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] And the second business in town is likely to be a hotel or motel, which would have a restaurant or dinining room as well as providing somewhere for passing travellers to stay for the night. [/QUOTE] Well, the hotel and the saloon are about the only constants besides the jail which is usually attached to the Lawman’s office (sheriff, marshal, ranger, police chief, head mercenary, hired killer, etc.). There’s also a place to get a tub bath and a shave and a livery stable with a blacksmith shop. A feed store. Have you ever wondered how every place big enough to have a few kegs of beer and a few shelves of hard liquor always has a piano? Imagine the sturdiness of a piano after being hauled across the prairie on a conestoga wagon, a train, or a stage coach. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/5 "2006-08-02T17:58:27Z")
Well, in **Deadwood** they’ve got a couple bars and brothels, a hotel, a livery, a doctor, some Chinese people who seem to be food vendors and launderers, a hardware store, a lot of little entrepeneurs who sell food items, and a shipping firm. Oh, and there’s a bathhouse. I’ve just finished the second season - looks like they’re getting a bank. Doesn’t seem to be a funeral home. They do okay, if filthily, with those few services, and didn’t have all of them when the show started. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/6 "2006-08-02T17:59:47Z")
Oh, they have a jail too, but it only has one cell. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/7 "2006-08-02T18:05:18Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] Well, in **Deadwood** they’ve got a couple bars and brothels, a hotel, a livery, a doctor, some Chinese people who seem to be food vendors and launderers, a hardware store, a lot of little entrepeneurs who sell food items, and a shipping firm. Oh, and there’s a bathhouse. I’ve just finished the second season - looks like they’re getting a bank. Doesn’t seem to be a funeral home. They do okay, if filthily, with those few services, and didn’t have all of them when the show started. [/QUOTE] I’m so glad you mentioned _Deadwood_ since it’s the best attempt to be authentic of any period piece I know of. Some of Eastwood’s towns have the look (_Pale Rider_ for example). And I thought _Shane_ paved the way for more realistic towns as far back as the early 50’s. But Hollywood seems to have either forgotten or just brushed aside the concept of realistic small towns. Most of them seem to have anything you could find in the average state capital. It’s as if the only real essentials were whiskey, cards, and a place to sleep off a good drunk – jail or a hotel. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/8 "2006-08-02T18:56:25Z")
And hookers. And blackjack! 😃 **Giles** nailed it pretty good. These days, if you have Medi-Vac capability, then an EMT can handle most things locally. One good General Store, where the help wears several hats, a diner, a gas station and an “Authority of some sort” office and you’re all set. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/9 "2006-08-02T19:14:54Z")
If it’s a three hour drive from larger population centers, your town is probably the county seat. In which case, you’ll have the various county offices, including the sheriff’s department, the county court, the recorder’s office, the assessor’s office. Some other likely businesses: grocery store, gas station and service garage, real estate office, lawyer’s office, newspaper, farm implement and feed store, hardware store. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/10 "2006-08-02T19:33:30Z")
In my little home-away-from-home burgh we have (from one end to the other): The School (K-12) The cemetary House of worship Art Gallery Hardware store Lawyer’s office Deli/convenience store Laundromat Oil/excavation/construction business Post Office Town Hall Bank Library Professional building Volunteer Fire Dept. & Rescue squad Fairground Tansfer station (the dump) regular folks Garage road manintenance/municipal Garage small outbuildings business Gas station/convenience store To be honest, I don’t even know where the local law enforcement office is. There’s a DEP (dep’t of environmental protection) office with all the important-looking vehicles that administers the watershed that I’m in, but I don’t think they would have the jail. ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/11 "2006-08-02T19:44:46Z")
I lived in a town that had a population of less than 100. We had a post office, a convience store/gas station/deli, a water treatment plant, 4 churches and a hunt camp. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/12 "2006-08-02T20:09:14Z")
Going west to east and zig-zagging across the street, these were the businesses along the main drag in my home town (population 776 according to the sign) when we moved there in the early 1970s: Paint/glass store Bank Fire station Liquor store Meat distributor Hardware store Two corner gas stations Furniture store Restaurant Barber shop Drug store (the store my mom and dad owned) Library/City Hall Restaurant Post office Hotel (which had been abandoned but now serves as offices) Tavern Small supermarket The “junk store” as my sister and I called it Feed store Town hall/grange Gas station The town has since grown exponentially and hardly any of the businesses listed are still the same. As my parents retired early this year, the drug store has now joined the line-up of businesses whose storefronts and types of businesses have changed. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/essentials-for-your-basic-small-town-a-la-western-movies/367031/13 "2006-08-02T20:26:01Z")
Just once, in some Western parody like _Blazing Saddles_ I’d love to see a crane shot pulling back and up to show the rooftops of the town (maybe like in _High Noon_ where we see Gary Cooper standing in the street all by himself) and further back to see the road into town, and maybe the railroad tracks and there on the outskirts of town… A Wal-Mart