Four score and seven years ago, a spot near Rugby was declared the geographic center of North America. Nobody could have predicted how much controversy would spring from that declaration.
The North Dakota town of 2,800 in Pierce County has claimed all these years that it is the true center of the continent, basing it on a 1931 U.S. Geological Survey. As the Herald has reported several times, the original determination came after members of the survey balanced a cardboard cutout of North America on someone's finger.
In 1932, Rugby residents constructed a 15-foot monument along Highway 2 to mark the location. The city trademarked the name.
But trademarks are limited by time, and when Rugby failed to renew the trademark, an opportunistic bar in Robinson, N.D. - about 90 miles south of Rugby - took advantage, starting the back-and-forth that finally ended last week. The Rugby Chamber of Commerce has announced a settlement with Hanson's Bar, supposedly concluding the dispute.
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We're glad Rugby has regained the title, and feel it should stay with the town. Meanwhile, we're not confident the true center actually does exist where the USGS placed it 87 years ago.
For example, Peter Rogerson, a professor of geography and biostatistics at the University of Buffalo in New York, last year determined the center of the continent to be in - of all places - Center, N.D., about 40 miles northwest of Bismarck. Whereas the USGS in 1931 used a cardboard cutout, a human finger and Sir Isaac Newton's gravity to determine the center, Rogerson's approach was much more scientific, using mathematical calculations and computer models while taking into account Earth's curvature.
Also last year, Casey Mutzenberger - armed with a master's degree in geography from UND - wrote a letter to the Herald and declared there is no accepted method for finding the continental center.
"Just to be clear, there's no way to actually determine the true center of an irregular polygon such as North America," he wrote. "Do you include Greenland? The Caribbean Islands? The Aleutian or Canadian Islands? And what about the water between the islands?"
We don't claim to be experts in geography. But after listening to experts, it makes us realize it is indeed impossible to determine the true center, since so many factors could be used to make that determination. Therefore, it's not an objective calculation. By adding or subtracting certain factors, so many towns that simply want the designation could take for their own the title of "Geographic Center of North America."
It really is a ceremonial, and quite subjective, title.
With that in mind, we say the designation does and always should belong to Rugby, which has claimed it for so many years.
In the end, the legal wrangling brought some excitement and publicity - along with a little intrigue - to the region as the debate continued. Since the title is simply a ceremonial declaration designed to draw a few tourists and news stories to the region, that is a victory by itself.
