Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Cities/Towns

  • Not the Usual State Capital Trivia

    It was time to clear my list of unwritten articles again. While doing that I noticed several of them involved state capitals, or their capitol buildings. Well, I’m not sure what the “usual” State Capital trivia might be much less the unusual. Nonetheless, let’s consider this an article on topics that the average layperson may…

  • Lockport

    The website hit came from Lockport, Illinois. Well, Lockport sounded familiar, although from a different time and place than Illinois. It also seemed quite descriptive, a lock on a canal combined with a port (or perhaps a portage). Locks would be ideal places for settlements during the heyday of canal travel a century or more…

  • Snipp, Snapp, Snorum, Hej Basalorum

    I don’t think I’ve ever milked three articles from a single small town before. So Earl Grey, a village in Saskatchewan struck the trifecta once I considered it’s origin. I’d mentioned in the previous article that one source said, “the district was then known as Snorum.” Did anyone else find that amusing? Snorum. It sounded…

  • Earl Grey

    The 12MC audience anticipated my next move again. It was “The Basement Geographer” this time. He flagged British prime minister Earl Grey and the Grey Cup in a comment responding to Gray vs. Grey. So I will cover that along with other topics today. I knew that could be a risk when I mentioned the…

  • Gray vs. Grey

    I’ve always had a terrible time remembering how to spell a certain word. It’s the one that describes a mixture of black and white. Should it be gray or grey? In a sense I understood that it depends upon geography. The adoption of simplified spelling in the United States through the efforts of people like…

  • Did Sir Walter Raleigh Get Drunk in Canada?

    I learned a new adage recently, Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: “Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no“. I’d already understood that mentally of course I just didn’t realize it had a name. Good to know. Naturally, Sir Walter Raleigh never indulged in intoxicants in Canada. The record…

  • More Weird Placenames

    I’m not posting one of those lists passed around the Intertubes. So you’ve all seen them and I’m certain you know what I mean. No Monkey’s Eyebrow or Turkey Scratch here. These are actual placenames that I’ve encountered as I’ve conducted the daily task of keeping Twelve Mile Circle current. They came from various sources…

  • Make Tracks to Midland

    So I had to admit it. My odd fascination with Every County’s slow-motion serial recitation of literally every county progressed towards an obsession. I couldn’t stop checking the author’s crawling pace once every few days. Then he arrived vicariously at Midland County, Michigan about a week ago where he noted that it “got its name…

  • Sault

    Twelve Mile Circle mentioned Sault Ste. Marie the other day, the name of two cities on opposite banks of the St. Marys River, one in Canada and the other in the United States. The curious prefix “sault” jumped-out of course, and while I was aware that it should be pronounced something akin to “soo” I’d…

  • Saint Marys River

    I’ve certainly noticed Florida’s northeastern bump above Jacksonville, and then the Georgia dip just to the west, both of which contrast with their generally straight remaining border. Sure, we’ve all seen it before and taken note of it. The meandering border through that segment follows the St. Marys River that rises from the depths of…