Asphalt Paving in Tomah, Wisconsin.

Tomah is in Monroe County, a city of about 9,600 at the point where I-90 and I-94 divide, and that split is most of the reason the town looks the way it does. It's 81 miles from Eau Claire, about an hour and fifteen minutes, and 40 miles east of La Crosse. Exit 43 off I-90 is US 12 and Highway 16, and Highways 21 and 131 come through as well.

Freight is why the lots here are big. The city names Cardinal IG and Cardinal TG, Toro, Exopack, USEMCO, Meca Sportswear, Mars Pet Care and a Walmart distribution center among its employers, along with local and statewide trucking firms, and says outright that distribution companies locate in Tomah because the two interstates divide there. Ocean Spray's plant runs three lines and turns out 31 million pounds of sweetened dried cranberries and concentrate a year. Monroe County lists three business properties in the city, I-90 Corridor Land, Meadows Park and Forward Tomah Land, most of them inside tax increment districts.

The largest single campus is the Tomah VA Medical Center on East Veterans Street, 174 acres and 266 beds serving veterans across 16 counties in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Tomah Health, Gundersen and a Mayo clinic are also in town, the Walmart Supercenter is on West McCoy Boulevard a minute off the interstate, and the school district runs eight elementary schools, a middle school and the high school on Lincoln Avenue. Western Technical College has a campus on East Milwaukee Street, and Tomah sits between Fort McCoy and Volk Field.