I’ve gone through thousands of small towns in my fifty years of traveling America. One of the things that always catches my attention are the faded signs of the past on an abandoned building. I am always tempted to stop and try to find out a little about the sign, as I’m sure it has an interesting history. I did try once, but all I got were shrugs and “I don’t know”. So, instead, I tend to make up stories about every sign I encounter. I’m pretty sure this picture is from a town in my area that was probably once a well traveled tourist path. But, now it is likely just local people going about their daily business.

It saddens me that small-town America has almost disappeared. The Interstate Highway system is the primary reason, but there are several others that also contributed. In 1900 60% of the population lived in rural areas and 40% of those lived on farms. By the time I was born it was down to 17% farmers. Today that number is now less than 2% farmers and 15% who still live in rural areas.

About 25 years ago, when I started to seriously travel America, I only used State highways. I liked the diversity of small towns. But there came a point where more and more small towns were becoming shells of their past. For many, about the only business left in the town was the local post office, and maybe a gas station/thrift market. As the years went by this became very depressing to me. Finally, about 10 years ago, I started taking Interstate highways. That has finally become the norm for me.

Just like everything else in life, things have changed to make small-town America a thing of the past. But it does no good to spend our future lamenting the past. The sooner more people realize this, the better off we will be.