{"id":16160,"date":"2017-09-12T18:21:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T22:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=16160"},"modified":"2017-09-12T18:22:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T22:22:12","slug":"the-lies-within-the-center-of-the-nation-a-tribute-to-belle-fourche-sd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=16160","title":{"rendered":"The Lies Within The Center (Of The Nation): A Tribute to Belle Fourche, SD"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months back, I got an email from Atlas Obscura.\u00a0 They\u2019re an aggregator of weird and wonderful sights around the globe (obscure things on an atlas I suppose one might say).\u00a0 In this email they revealed that the Center of the Nation monument in Belle Fourche, SD, was NOT the actual center of the nation<\/a>.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t exactly an expose but it was sufficient to blow my na\u00efve little mind.<\/p>\n

The actual center of the nation is about 20 miles north of Belle Fourche, in the middle of some farmland prairie field.<\/p>\n

I of course went to both.<\/p>\n

FAKE:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

REAL:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To be fair to Belle Fourche, they readily acknowledge they are merely *a monument* to the actual center of the nation, and their official sign makes this \u201cyou\u2019re in the wrong place\u201d perfectly clear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So they aren\u2019t lying per se.\u00a0 At least not from a certain point of view.\u00a0 But once we start delving into the notion of a monument not needing to be at the actual thing being memorialized, well, it seems to me we run the risk of things losing some of their meaning.<\/p>\n

I suppose though that\u2019s the difference between “monuments” and “survey markers” and various other \u201csignage.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I guess \u201cCenter of the Nation Monument\u201d plays better than \u201cCenter of the Nation Tribute.\u201d<\/p>\n