America is turning 250 this year, and with the parades and fireworks and local celebrations, there will likely be a feeling of nostalgia in the air. When we celebrate how far we’ve come, no doubt there will be some looking back to where — and who — we were.
Small-Town America: Two Stoplights and a ‘Potato Princess’
For many kids, those memories will be steeped not in big city vibes, but in the small-town, two-stoplight towns where the gas station was the gossip hub, and parades meant every kid could participate, even if it was just riding their bike behind a float holding the “Potato Princess.”
Before you used GPS to find your way into the “big city” (pop. 3,000), group texts and access to information 24 hours a day, small-town life in the ’70s, ’80s and even into the ’90s ran on a slower, simpler schedule.
MORE NOSTALGIA | ’80s Summer Vacation: Core Memories That Make Us Miss Being Kids
In America’s smallest towns (if you could call them that), everybody knew everybody, and everybody’s business was everybody’s business, and life might have been contained between the big silo in the east and the train tracks in the west. If this was your life, it didn’t feel small; it just … was. Well, until you turned 18, maybe.
This kind of America is harder to track down these days. According to the USDA’s Rural America at a Glance report, only about 14 percent of the country still lives in what counts as rural or small-town America today.
So as the country celebrates 250 years, here’s a tribute to those who lived the simpler way: 25 photos of the small towns that raised a generation of kids — whether they moved on to busy streets or stuck around — back when America still felt like it fit on Main Street.
Everyday Photos That Perfectly Capture the Small-Town America We Remember
These photos, mostly from the 1970s, capture small-town life back when things were simpler, slower, and a whole lot more real.
Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz
LOOK: These Photos Show Why ’70s Cars Were Something Special (and Obviously Better)
Big, bold, and built different — these ’70s cars looked and felt like nothing on the road today. Take a ride back and see them in their prime. [And we did our best to identify the models and dates, so if we got it wrong, gearheads, don’t come after us!]
Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz
