Hochatown, Oklahoma, is a 240-person community that shares a ZIP code with a larger city, Broken Bow, which sits 10 miles to the south. But the conflation has become a problem for Hochatown beyond mail delivery errors.
Dian Jordan, Hochatown’s former mayor and current board of trustees member, told NOTUS that when towns are clumped in with others by ZIP code, the communities could experience everything from ambulances getting sent to the wrong address to tourism dollars getting misdirected.
“You want your own culture and identity,” Jordan told NOTUS. “Because our culture is obviously very, very different than Broken Bow’s.”