Tag: Minnesota
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Highpoint to Lowpoint
Twelve Mile Circle received an intriguing question from reader “Cary” a few days ago. Cary, a professional mapmaker, noticed something interesting while conducting research: the amazing proximity of Minnesota’s highest point of elevation to its lowest. This led to a natural question. Was this the shortest distance between a state highpoint and a lowpoint? I’d…
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Bogus
The word “bogus” had a murky history. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it may have dated back as far as 1827, used in Ohio as a slang term for a counterfeiter’s apparatus. Somehow it became the name of a machine used to manufacture fake coins. Then bogus became counterfeit or fake in a more…
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Sunrise
Strange queries land on Twelve Mile Circle. Recently I noticed search engines referencing questions in the form of “does the sun rise (or set) in [name a location].” and sending them to the site. Since I’m pretty sure those would be daily events for most of us except perhaps at extreme latitudes during very specific…
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Named for Schoolcraft
I’ve been following Every County lately while the author winds his way virtually through, well, every county. He was at the northern end of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula at the time of publication. Slowly he’s blogging his was down from the Straits of Mackinac. The name Schoolcraft(¹) kept recurring as I read through new installments, a…
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Farthest Inland Port
I’ve discussed the port at Duluth, Minnesota (map) before and even created a travel page for it. I was particularly fascinated with the bit of trivia that Duluth was a significant seaport even though it was located 2,342 miles (3,770 kilometres) from its eventual outlet to the Atlantic Ocean. The Duluth Seaway Port Authority described…
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Railroads Torment Colfax
I mentioned Colfax, Louisiana in “Just the -fax, Ma’am.” Something rang in my mind with a sense familiarity. Where had I heard of the town’s namesake, Schuyler Colfax before? I combed through the 12MC archive and discovered he’d made an appearance in a different context. One of our readers, John Deeth first mentioned him. Then…
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United States of Colors
I began to think about counties with colors in their names as I investigated the etymology and history of Blue Earth County, Minnesota in further detail. My mind began to wander down this completely unrelated tangent. Soon enough I found myself hunting through a list of US counties for examples and plotting them on a…
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Blue Earth Revisited
After awhile experienced 12MC readers can sort-of guess where things are heading. I knew I ran that risk in the recent Blue Earth article. The early draft began to climb towards a thousand words and I still wanted to cover several more topics. Strategically, I split the article into two separate parts and wondered if…
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Blue Earth
What is this Blue Earth they speak of in southern Minnesota? There is a county of Blue Earth and a city of Blue Earth. However the city is not located in the county, rather it’s the seat of government in neighboring Faribault County. So the seat of Blue Earth County is Mankato which traces an…
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For More Birds
I kicked-up a lot of material as I researched Audubon, Iowa in the recent For the Birds. Originally I’d hope to feature several Audubon towns in the United States — and I do believe they are found only in the United States — and was completely overwhelmed by wonderful delights in rural Iowa. Today I…