Blue Highways: A Journey into America

by William Least Heat-Moon

We ordered another round. Johnny said, “Bag of flour sold here once for a quarter million dollars. That’s why the town seal’s got a bag of flour on it.” “What?” He repeated it very slowly. In my mind I saw a furred, aquatic animal balancing a sack of daisies on its nose. “I don’t follow you.” “In bonanza days, after the Civil War, a grocer made a bet with a fella on an election. Whoever lost had to carry a fifty-pound bag of wheat flour up Main Street. Now just walking that street taxes a man. Grocer lost. So he carried fifty pounds up Main to the tune of ‘John Brown’s Body.’ He was a Southerner. After he got to the top, he auctioned the bag off and gave the money to charity. Man who bought it auctioned it off and gave the money to charity. And so on. Made ten thousand dollars that day off the same bag. Later, another town got wind of it, and they wanted in. Last time that flour got auctioned was at the nineteen oh four World’s Fair in St. Louis. That dang bag raised better than a quarter million dollars, and that’s why the official town seal is a bag of flour. It’s over in Reno now.” “You mean with all the great natural wonders around Austin, the town symbol is a sack of stale flour?” “Tell me, mister, what’s more unusual: a pine tree or flour at five thousand dollars a pound?”