“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
Guess I’m sort of cheating here. I currently live in a town of 35-40,000 people. but I spent the first 19 years of my life on a farm a couple of miles outside Belgrade, MO. pop. 250. It isn’t incorporated, but it has a post office, zip code, telephone prefix, etc. I haven’t lived there in 10 years, though.
Marquette, MI isn’t the smallest town (it’s about 25000) but it’s probably one of the most isolated. In addition to being small, it’s also the largest town in about 100 miles. We’re a good 450 miles from the nearest city of any size (Milwaukee is the closest, and Chicago and Minneapolis are both about an 8 hour drive), plus the nearest interstate is a 3 hour drive.
Recently, my girlfriend and her daughter house-sat for some friends on vacation. I had to drive to Bagdad several times to pick them up for dinner, etc. You located anywhere near U.S.60/Peytona Garage?
Born & raised in Moncton, nb, population 110 000, but my dad was born in Bass River, pop…90.They didnt even have indoor plumbing until '68!! Its a cluster of farms, and a store.Not grocery, or hardware, or corner convienence…just a store, with ONE gas pump.If you cant get what you need there, you can drive an hour to moncton!
Beautiful place though, where kids ride horses bareback, and lay on the edge of a creek and watch the clouds. They still drink 'shine too, and make their own pickles.They make quilts too, and the men work in the fields and their cowboy boots are covered with cowshit, its a special place.
At the time of the census, the news said we were just under 1 million for the area (Tucson’s city limits are totally retarded, btw). Since then however, a lot of new little cities have sprung up, annexing parts of what used to be considered Tucson, but weren’t actually within city limits. Btw, city limits were so arbitrary and stupid… they had nothing to do with how many people or businesses or how dense they were or anything.
Hmm well i can’t cheat here since i live in a town with a population of 17,000 and it blends into the next town anyway. BUT, my grandmother grew up in the small town of Circleville KS. I think the population is aroun 3-400 people total. The town is so small that my mom’s uncle Kenny runs the ONLY butcher/grocery store, and was also the mayor for a time. They even had a one room school house.
I visited there with my family in 87’ when we were in Kansas for a reunion. I saw a map of the town and they have only about 10 streets total. They’re so rural they finally hooked up to the sewer line that goes into Topeka, instead of having septic tanks. I think they even had a few families dumping their sewage right into the local stream (if that’s true i am glad i never swam in that stream while we were there!)
I’m in a big town now, but when I was born, it was not so. It was an Indian reservation in Idaho called Lapwai. Pretty small. I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember my dad shooting a stray dog from the front porch. That’s a small town.
In defense of OpalCat, Tucson could very well be over 1,000,000 by now. The latest Census is from 7-1-96. (at 767,873) But, Tucson is the fastest growing city in the entire U.S. right now. So, it has to be up over 1 million.
Hey HubZilla- it’s nice to see another fellow Nebraskan here! I’m in Bellevue (south of Omaha), population about 40,000. Probably less now that SAC no longer exists.
You forget to mention what Lincoln’s population is on Husker game days.
PR
If you’re not part of the solution you’re just scumming up the bottom of the beaker.
I finally had to breakdown and register, cuz I had to weigh in on this. My town, Freeman,about 1/2 south of Kansas City, has 400 odd people in it. The next town over (2 miles) has 49. It dried up when the guy running the grocery store died. Well, it actually dried up when the trains were diverted in the 60’s, and the highway was moved, but you get the picture. Next town from that, 800 or so. BTW all 3 cities go to my (ex)highschool, Midway. 700 students. 36 people in my graduating class. Started Freshman year with 45. 9 dropped out.
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
I have to agree here. If I never get to Chicago, Detroit etc. again, I would be OK with that.
But, even here in this small town, I’m reclusive enough that not that many people here know me anyway.
It’s been kind of fun to find out how many of you actually do/did live in small towns. I guess the high tech revolution is making it into the rural sector too, right funneefarmer?
Well the high tech revolution has reached here I guess. My deal with the phone company limits me to about 100 hours a month online though, but don’t really need that much time online anyway. The upside is the readily available info. especially on weather and specific commodity and political news (and SDMB of course). It also seems to have curbed my appetite for TV. I was thinking about getting sat. TV like my parents until I got online a couple years back, haven’t really given sat. TV a second thought since. I can’t even keep up with an hour or two of broadcast TV a night, end up taping stuff and not getting around to watching it for days, if at all.
Born and raised in St. Maries, Idaho, Pop. 2014. One stop light, 2 grocery stores, movie theater, bowling alley, 6 bars. Left there in 1967, returned for a visit in 1992. Same population sign, no stoplight. Tore down the old highschool, built a new one outside of town (keep those pesky teenagers off the street). One new grocery store, the other two closed. Same bars.
Movie theater gone, bowling alley gone, railroad tracks gone, marina on the river gone. Guess they all stay home and watch tv.
