Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Tools

  • Town of County Line

    I’m always on the lookout for odd town names. So that’s what drew my eye to a dot, the aptly named County Line, Alabama. I wish I could make a better map, however Google seems to be stripping features away from “old” Maps, and the newer version is even worse. I can’t do simple things…

  • Trap Streets

    I’ve wanted to feature Trap Streets on 12MC for the longest while. I began the initial research and started writing an opening paragraph probably a half-dozen times over the last five years. It remained on my topic list, surviving various purges in the vague hope that someday I might find an opportunity to discuss it.…

  • Move Along, Nothing to See Here

    The signs claimed “On this site in 1897 nothing happened.” It felt mildly amusing, maybe even a tiny bit clever the first time — the first time! — I saw one of their ilk several years ago. They mimicked the look-and-feel of genuine historical markers with faux cast iron, bold font, adorned with a couple…

  • Hit the Twit

    Twelve Mile Circle now has a Twitter presence. I began a soft launch with 12MC’s Google+ followers two weeks ago so I could work out the details. I’m now able to post a variety of ways including by mobile phone, and I’ve successfully posted a photo from that source as well. I’m ready to take…

  • Search for Search and Other Tales

    Longtime readers may recall my fascination with people who come to Twelve Mile Circle, click on the search box on the upper-right corner of the page and then search the word “search.” I don’t pretend to understand the logic although I’ve come to accept it. There is an odd chink in the human psyche that…

  • 100th Meridian Counties

    The Intertubes wants to know and I’m happy to oblige. This is one of those occasional articles that regular 12MC readers may want to skip because it doesn’t involve much from an intellectual standpoint. For some reason I keep getting search engine queries about the 100th meridian west of Greenwich, specifically the list of United…

  • Remarkable Sundials

    I started fixating on sundials after stumbling across the dueling Dodge City railroad time zone sundials during Kansas Mountain Time. Fortunately I don’t think I’ll reach a point where I’m compelled to compile a list and go out of my way to visit them (as I do with lighthouses, fortifications and breweries). However, I’d probably…

  • Odds and Ends 6

    We have lots to talk about today in convenient bite-sized morsels. Time passes, familiar stories change, unexplored topics surface, and readers continue to contribute great ideas (thank you!). It’s a convenient moment to dust-off a periodic recurring theme on 12MC. I call it “Odds and Ends.” Like a bad movie spawning endless sequels, the Twelve…

  • Strange Canadian Bedfellows

    So I posted an article a few months ago called Strange Bedfellows. It explored country size comparisons included within the CIA World Factbook (e.g., “Botswana is about the size of Texas”). It was a great resource, I noted, for readers from the United States because landmasses were compared to US-based equivalents. Because the Central Intelligence…

  • Christmas Fluff

    Who reads 12MC on Christmas Day? Right. It’s just you and me today. Throw another log on the fire and don’t expect anything requiring research. This leaves me in a bit of a conundrum. I usually post an article on Tuesday. I suppose I could take the day off which would be a sane and…