The Most Isolated Town in the United States

To find the most isolated town in the United States, I took a map of the lower 48 and circled a 100-mile radius around 23 towns with strong gay neighborhoods (I was being generous, and included Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, and even Phoenix).  Then I looked for places the farthest from any of them:

Eastern Montana, over 500 miles from any respectable gay neighborhood.

And in Eastern Montana, the town the farthest from any city (population over 100,000) is Glendive,  over 200 miles from any place that's a "there."

Not named after "dive," an awful, shoddy establishment.  Glean-Dubh (pronounced glen-duve) means "Black Valley" in Irish.

It's a long, thin, flat town, like a string, crammed between railroad tracks (the endless whistles must be super-annoying) and the Yellowstone River, which is also narrow and flat.   Mostly trees and empty spaces.  I couldn't find a downtown on Google Maps; it seems to be all scattered houses and trees. 


There are restaurants called Crazy Woman Espresso, The Beer Jug, and the Gust Hauf.

What language is that?  Misspelled German Gasthof?

The south side of town has the Makoshita State Park and Dawson Community College, then a long, narrow trek of about 1/2 mile to the north side.  There's a landfill and the Glendive Lifestock Exchange, and then you hit the Medical Center and the Dawson County High School, and you're out of town.  Although it's hard to tell, with all the empty spaces.

LOTS of churches.  Glendive Evangelical Church, Community Bible, Assembles of God, Mormon, Seventh-Day Adventist, and Baptist. 


They have the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, but it's not what you think: it's "where Biblical history comes alive!"  Their dinosaurs co-existed with Adam and Eve, who were created about 6,000 years ago along with the rest of the universe.

"In the beginning, ___ created the heavens and the earth."  I'm going to go with the Titans of Greek mythology.









What do people do there, besides learning that science is wrong, praising Jesus, and dreaming of getting out?

The Dawson County High School has a drama club and offers golf, cross-country, football, basketball, and wrestling.

The Community College has a little theater, and baseball, basketball, and football.






I found this swimming champ, but I don't know what team he's on.

There's a website called Why Glendive Sucks.  Among the general (rundown, dirty, smells bad, nothing to do) there are several posts about homophobia.  Figures.




There seems to be a crossfit in town somewhere, but nowhere to go to show off your new buffed body.

You have to stay inside, afraid of your neighbors, wondering what people are doing in Billings right now.