Found: America's armpit

This is one of the most memorable, if irreverent, pieces of place-based journalism I've ever read.  Reverence is not a requirement of good place-based reporting.  Honesty, color and voice are all more important and this 2001 Washington Post story about the town of Battle Mountain, Nevada includes all of those elements.

In early 2001, the Washington Post asked readers to send in their nominations for the "armpit of America".  Humor columnist Gene Weingarten was dispatched to pick the winner.  He was ready to skewer.  Then, September 11 happened and the wave of coast-to-coast patriotism made poking fun at one part of a suddenly-united country less tasteful.  As Weingarten puts it: "The zeitgeist had shifted. Snide was out."

In general, it bugs me when east coast reporters travel to fly-over country to "discover the real America."  It's like they're writing about their trip to the zoo (and actually often involves descriptions of the animals they see along the way).

But in this story, the completeness of the author's research and his interaction with locals who, by and large embrace his armpit theory, lend an authenticity and authority to the story.  

The story's thesis is this:

Take a small town, remove any trace of history, character, or charm. Allow nothing with any redeeming qualities within city limits -- this includes food, motel beds, service personnel. Then place this pathetic assemblage of ghastly buildings and nasty people on a freeway in the midst of a harsh, uninviting wilderness, far enough from the nearest city to be inconvenient, but not so far for it to develop a character of its own. You now have created Battle Mountain, Nevada.

Enough said.  Go read it.

The photos in the Post's magazine were also wonderful, though sadly they don't accompany the archived article on Web.