The McFarthest Place

Difficulties of rural isolation

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45º25'37.9"N, 102º17'10.7"W. 113 miles from the nearest McDonald's. The Arneson family and their employee Riley Cihak ride their horses through thick morning fog on their ranch in the old town of Chance, SD on July 31, 2017. The Arnesons family moved from Montana to South Dakota due to rising land prices and taxes and slowly accumulated the entirety of what was once a small town in the area with a post office until the late 1950s.
45°31'48.6"N 102°48'17.6"W. 107 miles from the nearest McDonald's. A McDonalds trailer sits in a field outside in the small town of Prairie City, SD on July 31, 2017. Not far from the former McFarthest point in America, a local rancher bought two semi trailers for storage and left them in a field, one of which now acts as a reminder of the ubiquitous nature of corporate America.
45º19'04.0"N, 102º10'43.9"W. 120 miles from the nearest McDonald's. A small number of America Plains Bison are seen through the cracked windshield of rancher Jamie Hepper's pickup truck in Meadow, SD on April 12, 2018. Hepper is a third-generation bison rancher, starting her own business with the help of her father, following in the footsteps of her grandfather who was one of the first to commercially ranch bison on a large scale, helping to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.
45º44'23.0"N 102º13'06.9"W, 109 miles from the nearest McDonald's. A deer crosses the road at the Shadehill Recreation Area near the spot where frontiersman Hugh Glass was mauled, inspiring the movie “The Revenant," south of Lemmon, SD on October 6, 2017.
45º33'14.2"N, 102º30'36.1"W. 114 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Eliza Blue holds her daughter Emmy as her son Wesley closes his eyes and feels the coming storm winds on his face as they stand near an abandoned farmhouse on their leased land in Bison, SD. Ranchers and farmers have spent much of the droughty summer watching clouds on the horizon, hoping storms would hit, but most pass by without rain.
45º29'43.2"N 102º19'59.6"W. 120 miles from the nearest McDonald's. A group of men sit down around the dinner table for a meal of soup and sandwiches as they take a break from shearing sheep in the 20 degree weather and substantial winds at the Kronberg ranch in Meadow, SD on April 7, 2018. Sheep need to be sheared yearly for their health, but the cold weather caused issues, forcing the delay of shearing some of the herd, putting the rest in a barn, and for all the work, wool is worth hardly any money to working ranchers.
45º31'58.9"N, 102º15'19.0"W. 121 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Scott Storm swings a rope as he practices team roping with his friend Kenny Kocer at Kocer's ranch in Meadow, SD. Storm was known as a great roper on teams years ago but stopped after he was married; he didn't rope again until his son was old enough to start.
45°30'35.5"N 102°13'48.2"W. 124 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Jessica Lawson holds the war bridle on Fred the horse as her boyfriend Shane Yalowizer goes to get ready for a swim on his ranch in Meadow, SD on July 28, 2017. South Dakota spent the summer in the midst of a state of emergency-level drought that caused many ranchers to sell parts of their herds to pay for feed and farmers to harvest their crops at a loss. Yalowizer works for the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service helping ranchers apply for funds to protect against drought or mitigate the disastrous results, but providing federal aid is somewhat of an irony in a county that voted 80% for President Donald Trump's Republican administration.
45°24'42.3"N 102°16'54.3"W. 112 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Randy Hapney holds the neck of a horse while doing chiropractic work on a ranch on the old abandoned town of Chance, SD. Equine chiropractic work was generally looked at with suspicion for years but more ranchers have begun to use their services to fix issues with horses to keep them healthy and working longer, a sign of adaptations in a world that often looks nostalgically unchanged over the century.
45º32'31.3"N 102º29'52.1"W. 110 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Sion Hanson sits in a neighbor's home and drinks coffee before dinner in Bison, SD on April 6, 2018. A maintenance worker for the city of Bison, he wakes up early every morning to drink coffee, smoke a cigarette, and play cribbage online, playing over 35,000 games on Yahoo, but at almost 60 years old, he still dreams of owning a small ranch with a herd of bison.
45°31'54.3"N 102°15'32.6"W. 121 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Kenny Kocer pauses in a clearing of trees as he tracks a skunk he shot on his land in Meadow, SD. Kocer grew up on a local Cheyenne reservation, despite being far below the blood quantum to qualify for membership, and like many in the area holds prejudices against Native Americans.
45°31'30.0"N 102°28'11.9"W. 111 miles from the nearest McDonald's. People stand for the national anthem before the start of the Perkins County Rodeo in Bison, SD on August 5, 2017.
45º31'48.9"N 102º12'59.8"W. 123 miles from the nearest McDonald's. A derelict ranch, neglected for 7 months after it's owner died last July, is seen through the icy window of a car after an early-spring snowstorm in Meadow, SD on April 8, 2018. Perkins County has lost 74% of its population since 1910 and in the past 7 months, four residents of Meadow have died, lowering the population by 11% in less than a year.
45°32'31.2"N 102°29'52.2"W. 110 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Eliza Loughlin blows a hairdryer over the cold and wet fur of an hour-old calf born in the middle of a blizzard and brought in to the family bathtub by her husband Max Loughlin in Bison, SD on April 13, 2018. It was the second time during calving that a calf ended up in the bath tub, the third calf brought into the house to be saved, and fourth animal including a baby lamb that Eliza nursed back to health from being unable to stand.
45º32'31.3"N 102º29'52.1"W. 110 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Max Loughlin works on his taxes as his wife Eliza cleans up the dinner table, their son Wesley pretends to do taxes, and their daughter Emily runs around naked in the background in their family's four generation ranch home in Bison, SD on April 10, 2018. Max runs a cattle ranching operation on his family's land and works two other jobs to make ends meet while his wife Eliza performs as a musician and writes and records newspaper and radio columns for local publications and South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
45°31'27.4"N 102°28'11.2"W. 111 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Cowboys compete in a ranch rodeo at the Perkins County Fairgrounds in Bison, SD. Ranch rodeos, unlike rodeos shown on television or seen around much of the country, are team events where four riders show their skills as horsemen and ranch hands in activities that would actually be performed on a ranch like trailer loading.
45°26'49.9"N 102°10'07.6"W. 127 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Parishioners pray while worshiping at Coal Springs church in Meadow, SD. While many old prairie churches have closed over the years, many other small congregations still struggle to survive, or have multi-point parishes with one pastor serving a large area.
45º31'48.9"N, 102º12'59.8"W. 123 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Men drink at Smoky's Bar and Grill during an uncommon break during the spring calving season in Meadow, SD on April 15, 2018. Winter has dragged on into mid-April in South Dakota and ranchers spent many days preparing for an incoming winter storm that brought back memories of storms in 2013 and 1997 that killed hundreds of thousands of cattle and drove some to suicide.
45°31'52.6"N 102°07'55.2"W. 123 miles from the nearest McDonald's. A bone pile is stacked high on Audrey Lorius' family ranch about 5 miles outside of Meadow, SD. Lorius has 150 head of cattle, numbers built up through hard work to build up her family's ranch to a sizable number matching their 8,000 acres after she cared for both parents until their recent deaths. Part of the trials of owning a ranch, however, means that animals die not just of old age but lightning strikes or even freak snowstorms like winter storm Atlas that devastated herds in 2013.
45º31'59.1"N, 102º15'20.5"W. 121 miles from the nearest McDonald's. Scott Storm and his son Travis, 12, relax after practicing team roping as Kenny Kocer puts away a saddle in his saddle shop on his ranch in Meadow, SD. Kenny built his own arena for practicing roping and invites a select group of locals to rope almost every night, teaching many young or beginning riders the skills to become both a good competitor and ranch hand.

Mark Kauzlarich

Originally from Wisconsin, Mark Kauzlarich is a New York City based documentary photographer, National Geographic Explorer, contribu…

Topics
Environment Health
Sub Topics
Agriculture
Regions
United States
Rural isolation

About The McFarthest Place

“The McFarthest Place” gives insight into the social and economic burden population loss in one of the American Midwest’s most rural places. This project uses intimate and timeless images from the Great Plains and agrarian life combined with modern GPS mapping to convey the difficulties of rural isolation that drive population loss. By one measure, Meadow, SD is the most rural town in America. In 2009, a nearby spot was the farthest place in the continental U.S.from a McDonald’s. While the 80.8% of Americans in urban areas have quick accessibility to goods and services, symbolized by the ubiquitous McDonald’s, here you are 145 miles in any direction from the iconic restaurant. More importantly, specialized medical care, inexpensive groceries, and often jobs are scarce if nonexistent. And while people here attempt to lean on each other to survive, Perkins County, where Meadow is located, has lost 73.7% of its population since 1910