CLAIMS TO FAME MANY IN STEELVILLE

STEELVILLE -- Claims to fame abound in Steelville, the population center of the United States.

Steelville Mayor Dennis Bell says the Crawford County town is also the self-proclaimed river floating capital of Missouri and home to Miss Missouri, Amber Green.

Chamber of Commerce President Bob Perkins said that one day the town awoke and the Census Bureau named it the nation's population center.

"We didn't have to work very hard to earn that distinction," he said, "but are we going to take advantage? You're darned right."

The chamber's letterhead and logos tell of Steelville's title, and an Interstate 44 billboard invites tourists to the nation's population center, eight miles off the highway.

The park has a commemorative plaque to designate it as the population center.

Often when Perkins drives past the city park, he sees a family photographing the marker telling of Steelville's title.

"We hope they are so impressed with our town they come back and visit our restaurants and craft shops and antique shops and maybe take their vacation here," he said.

The new title, added in 1991, seems to be working as a tourist attraction.

During the Memorial Day weekend, a traffic count on Steelville's main street showed more than 95,000 cars drove through town.

Figures collected by the Census Bureau put the population's exact center in a woodland 9.7 miles southeast of Steelville.

Because Steelville, the county seat, is the closest community, it received the recognition.

Each decade the Census Bureau uses census figures to calculate the population center, which is defined as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all 248,709,873 residents were of identical weight.

In 1981, the Census Bureau that spot was in DeSoto, in Jefferson County. DeSoto is about 60 miles northeast of Steelville.

Officials use the population center to track the southern and western movement of Americans since the first census in 1790. At the time, the U.S. population center was near Chestertown, Md., about 25 miles east of Baltimore. Steelville is 818.6 miles from Chestertown.

Bell can't put a definite benefit to being the population center but thinks a lot of people visiting the city find it "unique and something to remember."

For the most part, things haven't changed in Steelville since 1991. Tourists still come to float the upper Meramec, the Huzzah and the Courtois rivers, and the largest employer is still the Brown Shoe Co.

The town's population of 14,065 has remained stable for two decades while the county's population of 19,704 has increased slightly in the last two or three years.

But, Bell said, the notoriety did perk up the town's businesses.

"The downtown area has gone through some renovations," he said.

Tourist, craft and antique shops have opened.

Perkins agreed it provided a real shot in the arm.

"Some communities have had it and not taken advantage," he said. "We don't intend to let that happen. We've only got it for 10 years."