Where the West Begins (or Doesn’t)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Interior, South Dakota—Ask any 10 sources where the West begins and you’ll get 10 different answers: St. Louis tells us it begins at the Arch; Rapid City tells us it’s the Black Hills; the writer William Least Heat-Moon says it’s the tall-grass prairie of Chase County, Kansas. Someone in the UP once told me that the West begins at the Cumberland Gap. It’s like unobtanium.

Except, I think I’ve actually found it.

Drive west through South Dakota, head south at Wall, and cut through the Badlands, and sooner or later find yourself in Interior, population 77, perched off to the side of the highway like a just-ripened piece of fruit.

If today’s Southern culture is rooted, very generally speaking, in a shared historical memory, the West of my imagination is defined more by a series of actions; it’s a place of mass movements (think Oregon Trail or Brigham Young), and engagement (with the land, and its original inhabitants).

There are certainly other ways to think of it—the West of tumbleweeds, and sun-bleached longhorn skulls, and kitschy stores that sell gemstones and sandpaintings, and dreamscapes of rock formations with names ripped from Norse mythology—but if I had to make the West from concentrate, I’d start with the suggestion that the West was something that was “won,” and work backwards from there.

(Photo: Tim Murphy)(Photo: Tim Murphy)Interior, as befitting its name, is where the West really begins, in spirit if not geologically. You can walk the place in 15 minutes and see a half-dozen or so buildings you wouldn’t have thought existed except in memory: The old city jail, which even I totally think I could bust out of; the old chuch, set against the backdrop of the Badlands, the place God forgot; the defunct gas sation; the handful of bars with signs still catering to bikers from Sturgis; some trailers; a K-8 school with an empty playground.

But mostly, I’d say Interior marks the beginning of the West because of the sign, across the street from the church and the old jail, which sketches the town’s vast narrative arc like a B-Side from Herodotus. It may as well be a welcome sign to the West.

“The post office burnt down, about five years ago. When was that—it was five years ago? Yeah,” says Heather Tucker, manning the register at Badlands grocery store. “That was pretty much the highlight of the last 10 years.”

Heather grew up in town, went to the K-8 public school, moved out after high school, and then returned. I ask her how long her family has been in town and she has no idea: “Since the beginning of time,” she volunteers.

“I left for a while,” Heather says, “but it’s kind of like a black hole, because you get sucked back in.”

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate