![\"MappingMainStreet_CircleMT-7.](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3518\/3813417371_2a976263a0_b.jpg\")
<\/a>Circle, Montana proclaimed itself<\/a> to be “A Great Place to be Around<\/em>” although it lacked a circle. The town followed a typical grid pattern of squares and rectangles with its boundaries aligned to cardinal directions (map<\/a>). It didn’t appear to represent a case of squaring the circle<\/a> either. Did the circle represent something other than a geographic designation? Of course it did, as the town explained,<\/p>\n\n\n\n “… inherited its name from the brand of the Mabry Cattle Corporation who came here in 1884. It was common at that time for a ranch to be known by its brand rather than the company or major owner’s name. In 1905 Peter Rorvik started a store and post office in the old ranch house and naturally name the Post Office ‘Circle’. The little town catered to ranchers and farmers. When McCone County was formed in 1919 Circle won the county seat, an important factor in the towns growth.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The town grew until 1960 when its population peaked at a little more than eleven hundred residents. It hemorrhaged population every census afterwards and housed barely six hundred residents by the 2010 Census. It seemed to suffer from a lack of opportunity, a common fate for isolated villages located far from the cities. Circle even gained some minor media attention for its remoteness. The website Quartz described it<\/a> as “the spot that is the farthest from any Starbucks in the continental United States\u2014more than 192 miles from the nearest green-aproned barista.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nAtlanta’s Original 1-Mile Circle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n