tank town

From the practice of steam locomotives stopping at small towns to take on water.

tank town (plural tank towns)

1. (originally US) A small, unimportant, place.

   Nothing ever happens in this little tank town.

   • 2004, Thomas Penfield, Dig Here!: Lost Mines & Buried Treasure of the Southwest, Adventures Unlimited Press, page 143:

     In 1884 four masked bandits held up a Southern Pacific passenger train as it stopped at the little tank town of Panitano for water.

• jerkwater town

• Eric Partridge (2005) “tank town”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volumes 2 (J–Z), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1931.