Franklin, Pennsylvania. The place I was born seems to participate in what is sometimes labeled “sacred geography.” No one really knows why people imbue certain places with a sense of particular significance, but we all do. Whether it is world-famous tourist sites or our humble hometowns, there are places for us that possess an emotional resonance that other places lack. By the time I was an adult I was eager to get away from my hometown, to stretch myself and see if there was more to this world than these ancient green hills were willing to disclose. But still I return. When something brings my town into prominence, it somehow still impacts me. In the second season of the X-Files Mulder and Scully came to Franklin. Of course, the episode was not filmed here, just set here. But that was enough. My small hometown had been validated. It is part of my personal sacred geography.

I recently learned about WestPA Magazine. While it still has a way to go before becoming mainstream, it needles into that sense of belonging that refuses to let me go. Reading about the grandeur that once settled over this town feels like reading my own biography at times. Last night, for example, I learned that one of the first steps of female equality—a small step, but we all must begin to walk somewhere—took place here. One of the inheritors of the oil wealth that originally put this region on the map was Charles Joseph Sibley Miller. He hosted two presidents on his yacht, partnered with John Astor and William Vanderbilt on a business venture, and had his car personally delivered by Louis Cheverolet. Although largely overlooked by history, Miller purchased a hot air balloon in which he took his wife, Mary Prentice Miller, for a ride, making her the first known woman aeronaut in history. One small lift for a woman, one giant lift for womankind.

There seems to be no scientific basis for sacred geography. It is simply something that we sense. I left my home region, the birthplace of the oil industry, a site of some importance in the Revolutionary War, to pursue a more tenuous, if abstract career track. And still I come back and find myself amazed. I suspect our sense of sacred geography evolved along with our penchant for territorialism, our desire for private property, and our need to find sanctuary of some kind. I can stake no claims for the accomplishments of those who settled this region, but for me it will always be a touch-point for sacred geography. When I make my occasional returns, it feels as though I might still belong.