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Battle Mountain was recently bestowed the title "Armpit of America" by Washington Post Magazine. A local newspaper editor who cooperated with the article's author lost her job. AP Photo Click on the image for an enlargement.

Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Battle Mountain responds to attack

RENO -- The outcry over a national magazine article dubbing Battle Mountain the "Armpit of America" cost a newspaper editor her job and stunned the article's author, who insists he's fond of the rural Nevada mining town.

Lorrie Baumann, former editor of the Battle Mountain Bugle, said she was fired after merchants outraged over her cooperation with The Washington Post Magazine threatened to pull advertising from the twice-weekly, 1,700-circulation newspaper.

"I lost my job because of this," Baumann said last week.

Residents were upset by comments attributed to Baumann in the magazine's Dec. 2 humor piece, which also considered Las Vegas for the dishonor. Baumann generally agreed with the unflattering label of the rural northeast Nevada mining town of about 5,000.

"Sounds about right," she told writer Gene Weingarten when he informed her the premise was whether to bestow "armpit" status on Battle Mountain. "I think a quick drive around downtown will answer any questions that might be lingering in your mind."

Bugle Publisher Lee Denmark, who also publishes the Humboldt Sun in Winnemucca, said Baumann's departure from the paper was a personnel matter and he would not comment. He said reaction to the article was varied and that he found "large segments mean-spirited and unnecessary.

"Some people were outraged. Some thought it was humorous. At this point, I think most of them want to try to figure out a way to capitalize on the publicity," he said.

Critics, including Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the article unfairly poked fun at Battle Mountain as a desolate, backward community inhabited largely by hicks and lacking in any real history, culture or entertainment beyond drinking and gambling.

"This is a very hurtful article," Reid told the Elko Daily Free Press. "Think how this makes the kids who are going to school there feel."

But over the course of the 6,000-word article, Weingarten appeared to undergo a transformation in which he closes with newfound respect for the resourcefulness of the townspeople, their local pride and dedication to their children.

"I've been going about this all wrong," Weingarten wrote toward the end. "This isn't about architecture, roads, weather, cultural opportunities. ... It's amazing what you can discover when you start to look in the right places."

In fact, the article's headline states:

"Why not the worst? We promised to find the armpit of America. Turns out it's only about five inches from the heart."

It's the path Weingarten took to get there that upset the locals, including ridiculing the town's big white letters on a mountainside, "BM." It portrayed a town where "architectural context is nonexistent" and "corrugated aluminum and aluminum siding seem to be the building material of choice," and where there is "a brothel, but no ice cream parlor."

The magazine cover features a photograph of the Battle Mountain Shell station sign with the "S" burned out -- HELL.

Weingarten explains how Battle Mountain beat out places like East St. Louis, Ill., Elizabeth, N.J., Branson, Mo., Fargo, N.D., and Scranton, Pa., for the dishonor.

"Take a small town, remove any trace of history, character or charm," the article said in quoting a Seattle resident who nominated Battle Mountain for the title. "Allow nothing with any redeeming qualities within city limits -- this includes food, motel beds, service personnel. Then place this pathetic assemblage of ghastly buildings and nasty people on a freeway in the midst of a harsh, uninviting wilderness, far enough from the nearest city to be inconvenient, but not so far for it to develop a character of its own. You now have created Battle Mountain, Nevada."

Weingarten, who grew up in the South Bronx and had never visited Nevada before his assignment, said he was stunned by Baumann's firing.

"I'm horrified," he said by telephone from Washington, D.C.

"Near as I can tell, he fired this woman for telling the truth and expressing an honest opinion. I don't think this is a great moment for American journalism."

Weingarten said the Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce requested 50 copies of the magazine and many residents who wrote recognized the underlying theme of the article.

But others "misunderstood what the ultimate message of the story was, which is that you can't define a place by what material things it lacks," he said.

"You define a place by the contents of the people's hearts. It seems to me it doesn't take a real careful reading of the story to understand I came away with a fond feeling for Battle Mountain."