Pawnee (Parks and Recreation)

Pawnee, Indiana
Parks and Recreation location
Created by	Greg Daniels and Michael Schur
Genre	Television program
Type	City
Notable locations	City Hall
Notable characters	Leslie Knope Ann Perkins Chris Traeger Ron Swanson Tom Haverford April Ludgate Ben Wyatt Andy Dwyer Jerry Gergich Donna Meagle Jean-Ralphio Saperstein

Pawnee, Indiana (/pɔːˈniː/ paw-NEE) is the fictional setting of the NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation. Since the show's start in 2009, the fictional town of Pawnee has received acclaim by fans and critics, with the town's colorful history and inhabitants being the joke or focal point for many episodes.

According to the series, Pawnee is the fourth most obese city and the 76th best place to own a horse in America.^[1]

Founding

Pawnee was founded in May 1817 by Rev. Luther Howell, who came from Terre Haute on an ox. The Native American Wamapoke tribe were driven out of town by July 1817. Howell founded several Lutheran churches in town. The first mayor of Pawnee, Charlton Sharpspeed, took office in 1818.^[2]

Location

Several times on the series, Pawnee is said to be located in the fictional "Wamapoke County", in south-central (or southwestern) Indiana. Although its exact location is unknown, Pawnee is said to be located about 90 miles from Indianapolis.

Pawnee is also believed to be the seventh largest municipality in Indiana. This would put its population between 80,294 and 80,405, the populations of the real ranking sixth and seventh largest cities in Indiana, Bloomington and Gary. However, Pawnee's population has also been described as between fifty and seventy thousand.^[3] Per the book Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, the town is "roughly the same size as Bismarck, North Dakota" — which had a population of 61,272 as of the 2010 United States Census. As of the 2000 Census, Pawnee had a population of 79,218 according to NBC's fictional Pawnee website.^[4]

Pawnee's twin town is Eagleton, Indiana, the smaller but wealthier adjacent community. Eagleton was founded by Pawnee's richest original settlers, who moved uphill shortly after Pawnee's establishment to found their own town. A mutual dislike between the communities has festered ever since. However, in "The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip Off Classic", due to an Eagleton budget crisis, the town is dissolved and incorporated into Pawnee.

Pawnee is noted as being in Indiana's 10th congressional district,^[5] which in reality has been obsolete since 2003.

Government

Pawnee's government is set up like most local governments in the United States, with several departments, such as Parks and Recreation (the primary focus of the show), Sewage, etc., serving under a strong city council and a mostly ceremonial mayor, with a city manager running the town's day-to-day operations. From 2014 until his election to the United States House of Representatives in 2018, Ben Wyatt succeeded his former boss, Chris Traeger, as City Manager. The primary protagonist of the series is Leslie Knope, a former member of the City Council who was the deputy director of the Department of Parks and Recreation until she accepted a job as the Regional Director of the National Parks Service Midwest, at the end of season six.

Walter Gunderson became mayor of Pawnee in 1994, according to the book Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, and held the office until his death in 2017. After an exhaustive search for an interim Mayor, Garry Gergich assumed the office and was then elected to 10 consecutive terms.

At the end of the second season, Pawnee had a serious budget crisis that eventually led to a temporary shutdown of the government. This storyline was inspired by the real-life global recession. The third season opened with the budget of every department being slashed.

Notable locations

Exterior of City Hall (actually Pasadena City Hall)

• City Hall, sometimes referred to as Pioneer Hall, in season one, is the primary setting for the series. It contains the Parks and Recreation Department, as well as other departments and offices.
  • The Fourth Floor of City Hall is the "creepy" floor that hosts the Department of Motor Vehicles, divorce filings, and probation offices.^[6]
• The Snakehole Lounge, a sleazy nightclub where many after-work functions are held. Donna Meagle is an investor, as was Tom Haverford before Chris Traeger made him sell his shares, to eliminate a conflict of interest.
• JJ's Diner, the unofficial meeting place for people in the government. It Leslie Knope's favorite eatery, where she always orders waffles.
• The Bulge, a gay club. Leslie became an inadvertent hero of its patrons when she "married" two penguins at the Pawnee Zoo, not realizing they were both male.
• Food and Stuff, a store frequented by Ron Swanson, where he purchases meat and miscellaneous items, such as mufflers.
• The Glitter Factory, a strip club that Tom frequents. They serve an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet that Ron Swanson appreciates.
• Turnbill Mansion, the site of an historic wedding between a Pawnee Native American man and white woman, which became a "bloodbath" when knowledge of the wedding became public; the sole survivors were two horses.^[7]

Annual functions

• The Harvest Festival, a carnival-like festival that spreads across the entire town. Budget cuts had terminated it, but Leslie revived it in season three with resounding success.
• Government Follies, a yearly, Christmastime pageant that parodies Pawnee's government; it is hosted by one of the departments.
• Tellenson Award for Public Service, a yearly award given to government officials for public service, won by Leslie's mother in the first season.
• Ted Party Day, a celebration supporting an historic tea party, wherein a random person named Ted is thrown into the lake because the old handwriting documenting the event makes "Tea" look like "Ted". As of the events of "Article Two," after people named Ted opposed being thrown into the lake, the city began using a volunteer to portray Ted.

Reception

The city of Pawnee has received critical acclaim. Several critics have noted that the city has become the show's secret weapon.

For example, Hillary Busis of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "the show wouldn't work nearly as well if it were set in a less wonderfully quirky place", and raved that "some of the show’s funniest moments come when the extreme weirdness of its setting is revealed — when, say, Leslie explains what’s going on in one of City Hall’s numerous, horrifically offensive murals, or when she dispatches ridiculous bits of Pawnee history. ('For a brief time in the ’70s, our town was taken over by a cult.') And then there’s how absurdly cosmopolitan Pawnee is: Why does this blip on the map have its own tabloid news show, zoo, beauty pageant, periodicals, and thriving nightlife scene? Pawnee is more than a setting — it’s a rich comic universe, like Springfield."^[8]

Merchandise

Since the series' premiere, NBC has sold merchandise for the town of Pawnee. Shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and other items were sold with the seal of Pawnee, as were shirts with Pawnee's slogan, "First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity".^[9]

In the episode "Born & Raised," Leslie writes a book about the town, titled Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America. After the episode aired, NBC released an actual eponymous book, filled with information about the fictional town.^[10] The author is listed as Leslie Knope, although it was actually written by show writer Nate DiMeo. In 2012, it was nominated for the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

References