A sign of Lamont’s growing stature

Sunday’s travel section of the Washington Post features Lamont’s welcome sign with its hashmark population count. Residents of the county’s smallest town praised “The Newspaper of Record” for finally recognizing it.

Lamont has gone big time.

The smallest town in Whitman County, and the second smallest in all of Washington, made national headlines when its welcome sign was featured in Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post.

“It’s about time the nation’s capital got a little sense and put Lamont back in there,” said mayor Steve Lacey.

Former Lamonter Maggie Rajala, who now lives in the city on the Potomac, noticed the picture when her husband, Nick, opened up the Travel section of Sunday’s paper.

The photo of the “Welcome to Lamont” sign, with its tally hash marks marking the town’s population, was submitted to the post by Judy Dugger, an attorney from Fairfax, Va.

“I travel around a lot, and I have to say that’s one of the funniest signs I’ve ever seen,” Dugger told the Gazette Tuesday morning over the telephone from her home.

Dugger said she owns an interest in a wheat farm around Lamont and visited this summer to check on the crop and meet with the Lamont Grain Growers.

The unique sign has been greeting visitors to Lamont since the 1990s, according to Jean Stromberger, the Gazette’s Lamont correspondent.

Lacey said there used to be a “Nuclear Free Zone” sign beneath the population marker, but that was stolen years ago.

The hash marks count 100 residents of Lamont – a number around which the town’s population normally hovers. The state Office of Financial Management this year reported the town had a population of 95.

Lacey said he may take advantage of being printed in “The Newspaper of Record,” into applications for federal grants.

“It’s one of those moments that’s completely random,” said Lacey. “Which, of course, we’ll milk ‘til the end of the world.”