I grew up in what most people in the US would consider a small town; its population was less than 10,000 and it was 45 miles from a larger city. I never thought of my town this way, though, because the large area around it were pocked with tiny hamlets I couldn’t even believe had a name. To me, these were the true small towns. I always wondered what it would be like to live in a place like that. How strongly could you identify with a place not much larger than an intersection of county roads?

To be clear, whenever I use the term “city”, “town”, or “village”, I’m using them in the conversational sense; I’m not speaking in legal terms. I’m also not using town to refer to a township or subdivision of a county. I’m using town to mean a discrete collection of people and buildings large enough to have a name. I can’t tell if my definition is directing my thoughts or my definition comes from my analysis, but I often like to think of the minimum number of buildings and people it would take to constitute a town.

Proto-Towns

I’ve seen towns that, at least to me passing through, included only a gas station/convenience store, a bar, and a few homes. To me, this has to be the minimum. If you take away the houses, it’s just a couple of businesses taking advantage of the traffic increase associated with intersections. If you take away either the bar or the convenience store, it also feels almost coincidental to be near a few houses in the middle of nowhere.

As a resident of one of the houses in this smallest town, I’d bet you know all of your neighbors. With only maybe four or five other houses, it’s not a difficult thing to do. You probably also know the clerks at the gas station and bartender/wait staff in the bar pretty well, too. For some folks, that might be the only immediate community necessary. It’s a step up from living by yourself in the middle of nowhere, and when you want to see a friendly face, you can pop in the bar and chat.

I think a town that size might be better classified as a proto-town. While a makeshift community may exist (probably centered around the bar), I’m not sure if the bonds are strong enough for people there to really have any pride of place. I think a certain measure of civic pride is necessary for people to really view a place as “their town”.

Schools and Churches

If a place has an institution like a school or church, it deserves the label of “town”. Schools and churches are institutions that create community and a sense of pride within themselves, and it spills out into the greater community. Churches and schools also often have the name of their town in them, reinforcing the existence of the town and cementing the relationship between the institution and the community.

Wyatt, Indiana (but it could be anywhere in the Midwest) is a good example of a minimum town.

Schools and churches also create large, regular gatherings. Every school day parents, children, and teachers descend upon the school building, and that activity give the town a pulse. Churches and synagogues fulfill that purpose on the weekends. This routine traffic is much different than the scattered traffic of a proto-town. In a proto-town, almost all movement is independent. A trip to the convenience store is never a scheduled activity, and while a bar may have regulars, it never has the same rhythm.

Raison d’être

While I think I outlined some of the places necessary for people to feel like they are in a town, I think a true town needs larger purpose than simply an intersection of county roads or the cheap land where the baptists could put their church. Most of the time, a town’s raison d’être comes from an industry. It’s not hard to understand why a town would spring up next to a factory. People want to live close to where they work to reduce commutes. Other businesses want to be near where there are people every day. Churches want to be close to congregation members. And so on. If a place produces something, it’s very likely that it is a town.

A town’s reason for being might also come from location (which can then inform which industry might work there). If there is a spot of land adjacent to white sand beaches, groves of palm trees, and warm breezes, a town may serve the purpose of supporting a tourist industry. A town may also spring up next to a mountain rich in minerals ripe for mining.

I think many of these smallest towns are “company towns” in the sense that there is one primary employer. In my area of Wisconsin, that could mean the place where the farmer’s cooperative is, or where the grain elevator is located. The company those cases is farming, but it’s still a town dedicated to one industry. If you add to the industry a bar, gas station, and a school and/or church, and I think it’s safe to say that you have the nucleus for a very small but functional town. It’s a core that could eventually expand to include a small grocery store, salon/barber shop, bank, post office, and other services residents demand. Even without these additions, these smallest towns produce something needed in the marketplace and support a community that identifies themselves as residents. Not bad for a few buildings on an intersection.