MOUNT CARMEL - As a junior high school student in the 1940s, Phil Gergen had a passion for geography. He also had an interest in statistics, an affinity that continues to serve him well as Mount Carmel Area School District's sports information director.
One day back then, Gergen decided to delve into the figures recorded for the 1940 U.S. Census. The World Almanac conveniently listed all places in the nation (then 48 states) that had a population in excess of 5,000. It didn't take long for Gergen to determine that, as of 1940, Mount Carmel Borough, with 17,780 people, ranked 570th in the nation in population.
Then and there, Gergen made a solemn resolution to himself: During his lifetime, he vowed, he would visit each and every city in the U.S. that, in 1940, had more people than Mount Carmel.
It took Gergen about 65 years, but he has made good on that resolution. At 2:41 p.m. July 11, Gergen, 79, arrived in Cape Girardeau in southeastern Missouri, the last of the 569 cities included on the "places to visit" list he compiled decades earlier.
Some of the 569 visits were relatively easy to accomplish, Gergen noted. His grandparents lived in Shamokin (1940 population, 18,810) so he was a frequent visitor there. Pottsville (1940 population, 24,530), also on the list, is close by.
Pins on the map
Gergen, a 21-year career
man in the U.S. Navy, had plenty of opportunities to travel during his active duty service, both in the U.S. and in foreign countries, mostly western Europe and northern Africa. Some of the 569 destinations were visited during his Navy years, but many came after Gergen retired in the early 1970s and returned to Mount Carmel, where he became a teacher and later an assistant principal in the high school. He said he came back because he loved his hometown and wanted his son, Rob, and daughter, Susie, to receive the quality education he knew Mount Carmel Area High School would provide.
For almost four decades in his Mount Carmel home, Gergen has tracked his progress by placing pins on a large wall map that he had specially made to include just outlines of the 48 states in the continental U.S., and no cities. As the years went by, he inserted pins at the points on the map where the 569 cities are located. The pins have different colors: black for overnight stays, red for visits of more than one hour and white for "feet on the ground," drop-by visits of less than one hour. As time went by, Gergen gradually whittled down the list, visiting about 15 locations per year.
There is an abundance of pins on the map's northeast corner; the 1940 Census was a few decades ahead of the population shift to the South and Southwest. Gerger pointed out, in fact, that, in 1940, Pennsylvania had 47 cities that surpassed Mount Carmel in population; Massachusetts had 45, and New York 40. Gergen's map has very few pins for California and Florida, because the phenomenal growth in both states occurred much later. Locations in Alaska and Hawaii were not included because they were not admitted to the Union until 1959. Gergen was, however, stationed at Pearl Harbor while in the Navy.
Gergen's late wife, Joan, accompanied him on many vacations throughout the continental U.S. over the ensuing decades, and part of the motivation for the trips was the opportunity they provided to scratch a few more destinations off his long, but gradually shrinking, list. Their grandson, James, was also an eager companion on many of their vacations.
On many occasions, Gergen and his family flew to a specific location, rented a vehicle and drove to places on the "569 list" that were easily (or sometimes, not so easily) reached by car. In his latest trip to the final five destinations, however, Gergen put 2,864 round trip miles on his car. "I'm proud of the fact I didn't even put a dent on the car," he said. Gergen was accompanied on this final quest by his current wife, Elaine.
The final five destinations were: Paducah, Ky. (565); Jackson, Tenn. (566): Memphis, Tenn. (567); (568), and Cape Girardeau (569).
The last destination
The Gergens were especially well received in Cape Girardeau. While they were in town, they stopped by the office of the town's newspaper, the Southeast Missourian. The paper did a story on Gergen, published in the Sunday edition of July 17, headlined "Man crosses Cape off list of places to visit." Accompanying the story was a photo of Phil and Elaine standing by a mural that was painted on the wall of the newspaper building, also reprinted by permission in today's edition. The mural contains representations of some of the famous people who visited Cape Girardeau, including President Harry Truman.
On their way back to Mount Carmel, the Gergens stopped in Indianapolis (already visited years before), where Phil visited a friend, John Gillis, at the National Federation of State High Schools Associations. Gergen, whose keen interest in high school sports is legendary, was pleased to see photos on the wall of three great area coaches - Joe Diminick, Joe Cesari and George Curry.
Gergen couldn't recall any destinations among the 569 that he absolutely disliked. "Each place was unique in its own way and worth visiting," he said. Nevertheless, he has his favorites, which include:
- San Diego, Calif. Gergen was there in his Navy years and remains forever impressed with the city's beautiful beaches.
- Newport, R.I. This is where he and his high school friend, Bernie Jankowski, attended Officer Candidate School after they joined the Navy.
- St. Joseph, Mo. The visit there was special to Gergen because his father, Dr. Leo Gergen, a well-known Mount Carmel optometrist, visited there in the 1920s when he was en route by train to Montana. The senior Gergen spent some time as a cowboy out west before returning home, his son noted, and it was a moving experience for Phil to walk the streets reflecting that he was at last looking at some of the sights that his father saw as a young man decades before.
- Canton, Ohio. Gergen enjoyed seeing the Pottsville Maroons display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
- Toledo, Ohio. On the day Gergen and his late wife, Joan, visited, the Ohio State Rib Cook-off attracted thousands of people to a riverfront park. The stay was brief, however; Joan was a vegetarian and the beef smell was too much for her.
- Reno, Nev. Gergen insists the city deserves its nickname as "the biggest little city in the world."
- Charlotte, N.C. He is happy to proclaim that the city is indeed the "Queen City of South."
- Texarkana. "You can walk down the street there," Gergen remarked, "and have one foot in Texarkana, Texas, and the other in Texarkana, Ark." He was happy to visit both, but he only got credit for one stop. Texarkana, Texas, had more people than Mount Carmel in 1940, but Texarkana, Ark., did not.
- Vincennes, Ind. Gergen couldn't get over the fact that Vincennes was the smallest city to give its name to a World War II cruiser. During his stop there, Gergen met a priest who pointed out that back in the old days, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vincennes extended all the way to Chicago.
- Galesburg, Ill., which Gergen remembers as having one of the best Big Band radio stations he ever heard. The station was on a par, he said, with Mount Carmel's own WMIM and its very popular Sunday Big Band show hosted by the late Paul Keiser.
- Paris, Texas. Not surprisingly, Gergen said, Paris has its own Eiffel Tower, with a big old 20-gallon hat on top.
- Rochester, N.Y. - Gergen has fond memories of white sailboats on Lake Ontario at sunset, a truly beautiful sight, he said.
- Bloomington, Ill. - Gergen was impressed by the memorial there that commemorates "Lincoln's Last Speech." Gergen said the reason the speech is "lost" is because newspapermen, who were so transfixed by Abraham Lincoln's words, neglected to write anything down, and the content of the speech is therefore lost to history.
Vegas was smaller
One of Gergen's favorite spots in the U.S. is Las Vegas. He enjoyed visiting there, but he got no credit for it because in 1940, Las Vegas had fewer people than Mount Carmel. Interestingly, he couldn't count Sunbury either because the county seat of Northumberland County was smaller than Mount Carmel in 1940. Pittston was the city that was ranked right above Mount Carmel, 569th in population, in the 1940 Census.
Although Gergen's traveling days are far from over, he is excited that he reached the ambitious goal he set for himself so many years ago as a young teenager. "I always hoped I could make the goal," he remarked, "but I wasn't sure I'd be fortunate enough to live this long."
Gergen also considers it fortunate that he set that goal in the 1940s and not in 2011. The task today would be even more daunting. According to 2010 Census results, Mount Carmel Borough now has only 5,893 people, roughly one-third of its 1940 population. "There are no doubt tens of thousands of places that are bigger than Mount Carmel now," he laughed.