As noted on a historical sign in town, Belle Fourche, South Dakota is the little-known and even less visited geographical center of the USA. The quiet village is about 30 miles north of better-known Sturgis, S.D., which draws 500,000 visitors to its famous motorcycle rally each summer.
Belle Fourche, whose name means “beautiful fork” in French, earned the distinction as the national bullseye in 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii joined the Union, shifting the country’s center some 500 miles northwest from its previous site in Lebanon, Kansas.
While Belle Fourche celebrates its national centrality with an impressive granite marker, the more accurate geographic center of the country sits modestly about twenty miles outside of town.
Clay, who wrote on the question of the heart of the nation (both literally and figuratively) in his latest book, The Language of Cottonwoods, recently visited Belle Fourche with Listening to America’s intrepid videographer and drone pilot Nolan Johnson.
