Geographic Center Monument

Attention: Program by Nancy King scheduled for February 5, 2026 at History Center, Ladies' Lingerie through the Decades, has been cancelled due to weather.

The Population Center is not determined numerically; it's the geographic point at which the U.S. would balance if each of its residents (currently over 342 million) weighed the same. 

February 1st, 1923, the Saint Louis Chamber of Commerce announced that Lawrenceville was the center of population according to the census taken in 1920. The center of population had moved steadily westward rapidly during the first part and more slowly toward the end. During the last 50 years it travelled across Ohio and Indiana and finally reached Lawrence County. While the center had been moving west it had also been moving a little bit south. Those who knew agreed that the center of population would never move much west of the Mississippi River. They obviously didn’t count on California sunshine and Silicon Valley.

Lawrence County was designated as the center of the white population of the nation (as opposed to the center of all population) and a suitable marker was placed about two miles southeast of Lawrenceville in the fall of 1925. When A J Faust received the information from the census bureau, he immediately enlisted the aid of the Boy Scouts. A marble slab 4 ½ ft tall by 2 ft wide and 13 inches thick was purchased from Milligan Monument Company for a suitable monument. The Chamber of Commerce was asked to erect a marker in the courthouse yard which would let visitors know that the center of population was 2 miles from that spot. (south of Sand Ridge School.) It was also expected that an appropriate sign would be placed at the road directing visitors to the spot. The thought was that this would attract attention to Lawrenceville as being a good place for the location of a factory as goods could be distributed easily in all directions from the centrally located city. (I think they were confused with the geographic center of the United States.)

By October 18, 1951, the center of population had traveled to Olney. Charles Sawyer, US Secretary of Commerce, stepped from a DC-3 at George Field airport and was formally welcomed by John Galloway, a member of the city council's airport committee, Harry Querry, and Stoy Fox of the Lawrenceville Chamber of Commerce, Carl Smith, Guy McGaughey Jr, Mr. and Mrs. HD Wagner, and Oran Calvert. The night before there was a ‘farewell to marker’ party at Bloomington Indiana. Secretary Sawyer spoke highly of George Field the moment he left the twin engine plane. “This is a wonderful field,” he repeated several times before being hustled away to a convertible, part of an automobile caravan that left immediately for Olney.

State patrolman Howard Cleff and Harry Bradley escorted the motor convoy westward as other motorists pulled off the road when they heard or saw it coming. Also arriving at the reception was Senator Paul Douglas, the senior senator from Illinois whose face reflected the tremendous pressure in Washington DC.  He looked extremely tired, the reporter said, but said Douglas was thankful for the opportunities to see so many of his southern Illinois friends again.

At 11:45 Illinois’ popular governor Adelaide Stevenson arrived. Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen was scheduled to attend but sent last minute regrets because of a deluge of work piling up in the Senate. While the honored guests and delegates dined at the hotel in Olney, Ed Fortney of the Sumner Press and Bill Patrick of the Lawrence County News had lunch at the Olney Elks Club which was the press and radio headquarters for the day.

Following lunch, a parade wound its way to the City Park in Olney where both the Lawrenceville and Bridgeport high school bands as well as Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and Brownies from the area all added to the magnitude and splendor of the parade.

In addition to seven bands and a string of special guests in open cars, numerous floats and specially adorned automobiles made it a parade well worth seeing. A covered wagon drawn by four ponies had a sign on its side that read “1790-1950. It took 160 years but we're here.”  A sign on an old car transporting a man, his wife and ten children said, “We did our share inscribed on the side.”

Then the huge crowd shifted to a site near Dundas on route 130 where the center of population marker was unveiled quite unceremoniously. Those persons who went on to Carl Snyder's farm, the actual site of the center of population for the U.S., didn't get to see that important spot of ground because Carl, naturally, didn't want his corn crop trampled.

As the reporters left late that afternoon and started back to Lawrence County, they remarked among themselves that Carl Snyder and his family would probably be seeing flashbulbs spots in front of their eyes for the next few weeks as there were 40 photographers there.   The family would probably be relieved that all the hubbub had subsided with the crowds. All Carl Snyder had to show for his short-lived prominence was a stake in the middle of a cornfield drainage ditch and a monument along the highway to remind him of the nightmare every time he drove to Olney.

Since Olney could not convince all the people moving west to lose a few pounds so it could maintain the equilibrium the city lost the distinction of being the population center of the US.  People continued to move, and after the 2020 census, Wright County Missouri (west of the Mississippi river I might add) now has the right to add the title to their county signs.   In case anyone is interested, the geographic center of North America is in the town of Rugby North Dakota.