Envious foreigners may claim otherwise, but America is still at the center of things. And we have the centers to prove it: the Geographic Center of the Contiguous U.S., the Geographical Center of North America, and the Exact Center of the Northern Half of the Western Hemisphere -- not to mention the Center of the World and four (count 'em) Centers of the Universe.

Enough? Not for Belle Fourche on the western edge of South Dakota. It already has two centers within a half-hour's drive, and by the end of Summer 2007 it plans to add a third smack in the heart of downtown.

Belle Fourche's good fortune began in 1959. Alaska became the 49th state and the U.S. Geodetic Survey determined that the new "Center of the Nation" fell less than 30 miles north of town along US 85 (This was accomplished, reportedly, by glueing a map of the U.S. to cardboard and seeing where it balanced on the tip of a pencil). Hawaii became the 50th state seven months later, and the Center shifted six miles southwest -- and even closer to Belle Fourche.

That's where things have stayed for almost 50 years. The 49-states-Center received a boost when the Dept. of Transportation built a scenic overlook at the spot (The excuse was a nearby Sheepherders Monument, not the out-of-date Center). But that ended -- and the site was closed -- when it was discovered that local teenagers were using it for parties, and that it had become infested with rattlesnakes.

The 50-state-Center never even got the chance to be formerly famous. It was, and remains, a red metal pole stuck into a pasture, off of a gravel road behind a ditch and a barbed wire fence. Worse, people (like us, misled by an old postcard) confused it with the more visible 49-state-Center, and were oblivious to it.

That will change on August 21, 2007, the anniversary of Hawaii's statehood, when Belle Fourche unveils a $50,000 "Center of the Nation" monument along the banks of the Belle Fourche River, near the town's visitor center and museum.

"We just reached a point where we said, 'Man, we really gotta give the tourists something that they can take a picture of,'" said Teresa Schanzenbach of the Belle Fourche chamber of commerce. "We haven't even had a post card, because a post card of a red fence post really doesn't cut it."

The new Center will encourage participation, using a you-are-standing-on-the-spot design like the one at Four Corners. Teresa stresses that the new Center will also be an alternate, not a replacement. Photos and directions to the real Center will be displayed at the monument, "and if you want to go there, go for it."

"That's for people who are die-hard," Teresa says of the real Center. "A lot of people are happy that it's just a fence post in a pasture." The new Center, in contrast, "allows people who aren't 'left brain' and who don't care about the actual coordinates, but who want to be at the Center of the Nation, to be there. It allows them to have that experience without having to cross the barbed wire fence."

That sounds to us like a slippery slope, a lazybones approach to Centers; why not put the monument in Rapid City? Or Colorado? But, then, the tourism industry is built on laziness, and we love attractions that are right off of an interstate as much as anyone. Teresa adds that the new Center is also meant to attract people who might otherwise be excluded, such as those with small children or physical limitations. Should they be denied the chance to be at the Center of the Nation simply because of a ditch (or some rattlesnakes)? Despite our usual dogmatism, it's an idea that's difficult to object to.

Teresa, who has been raising money for the monument for years, admits that the fund is still short by thousands of dollars. Still, she's confident that the cash will be found, that the new Center will be completed on schedule, and that the town will accept it. "I imagine that there will be some grumbling," she says, "but it won't discourage us. I think that once it's here, people will say, 'Wow, what a great thing!'"

[04/01/2007]