A small town just 33 miles east of Lebanon on Highway 32 is officially the population center of the United States.
Plato, in Texas County, now holds the designation as a result of the 2010 census. The center is determined as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless, rigid map of the U.S. would balance perfectly if all 308.7 million residents were of identical weight.
Bob Biram is the unofficial mayor of the village and a member of the board of trustees. He says Plato has grown since 2000.
“Well, since we were incorporated in the year 2000, we had 74 [people] and now we have 109, so yeah, its is a pretty good increase really,” Biram said.
Biram says outside of the new found fame the town is pretty quiet.
“I don’t know if we have any famous people, we’ve just got a nice school and a nice fishing down in this area. We’ve got the Big Piney River and nice hunting, a lot of good hunting.”
“It’s just a good peaceful area to be in.”
The population center had moved southwest over the past several counts, from DeSoto in 1980, to Steelville in 1990, to Edgar Springs in the most recent 2000 census.
