An archive of small-town America
Nobody agrees on exactly how many Springfields there are in America — which is precisely why we stopped counting towns and started counting stories. The floods and the fairs, the feuds and the front porches: we write them down before they're forgotten.
Springfield is the most American name a town can have — so common it became a synonym for “anywhere.” We think “anywhere” deserves a biographer.
When a cartoon needed a hometown that could be any hometown, it chose Springfield. When textbooks need an example town, they reach for the same name. Dozens of real places carry it — river towns and railroad towns, mill towns and college towns — each one certain that it is the real Springfield.
This site is a slow, affectionate census of all of them. One story at a time, sent in by the people who lived it or dug out of courthouse basements and county newspapers, until the most ordinary name in America is also the best documented.
For three winters in the 1890s, the Methodist church bell in one Springfield rang at odd hours with no hand on the rope. The town split into believers and skeptics. The skeptics never did explain the third winter.
Coming to print ↦In 1904 a westbound express carried a bride from Springfield, Massachusetts to a groom in Springfield, Missouri. Her luggage was sent to a third Springfield entirely. The wedding waited; the letters survived.
Coming to print ↦Every Springfield had a movie house, and nearly every one is now a church, a gym, or a hole in the streetscape. A tour of the marquees that made it — and the projectionists who kept the lights on too long.
Coming to print ↦The archive is being rebuilt by hand — new stories are set in type as they arrive.
A running ledger of the Springfields on our map. A ✶ means at least one story has been filed; the rest are patiently waiting for their correspondent.
A grandmother's rumor, a courthouse record, a photograph with names on the back — if it happened in a Springfield, we want it in the archive. Plain words welcome; we'll help with the typesetting.
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