Category: U.S. Counties
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I’ve Barely Been There
I’ve been to all of the 50 United States as is true with several others of you who read Twelve Mile Circle regularly. In fact, that’s what got me started on the strange hobby of County Counting. I ran out of things to count so I had to break the individual states into their sub-units…
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Random Canadian
The pursuit of geo-oddities is a passion of mine, but not my only one. History, and by extension personal history (genealogy) is another. Sometimes the two intertwine. I’ve long known of a family line tangential to mine that associated with the early history of Canadian, Texas (map). Their involvement began with the founding of Canadian…
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Erasing Van Buren
Political debates come and go. What happens, however, when people live in a place named after a politician they despise? That doesn’t happen very often anymore. Just about every geographic location got its name a long time ago, at least in the United States. The nation expanded furiously in the first half of the Nineteenth…
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Fanciful States
I often see queries on the site along the lines of “Map of counties in State X that border on State Y.” I’m not entirely sure why this is a topic of such interest but apparently there are people who care about such things. There aren’t a lot of resources on this monumental topic so…
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The Jeffersons and Beyond
I stumbled across a geo-oddity as I worked on one of my other hobbies (genealogy): one family line had a connection with Watertown, in Jefferson County, Wisconsin; and a member of that same family had a connection to Watertown, in Jefferson County, New York. I’d never come across a situation where two states had towns…
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Appalachian Trail Counties
For a long time I’ve wondered what would happen if a county counter hiked the Appalachian Trail. I know that’s not a normal curiosity. I’m not the type of person to move in lockstep with everyone else though. However, I am not interested in walking the Appalachian Trail. I am sure the wonders and hardships…
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Cut the Corner
Longtime reader James S.[1] has an interesting experience every time he drives along Interstate 75 between Georgia and Florida. There is a spot along that highway where one can observe two county entrance markers simultaneously. Take a close look at the Google Street View image and the signs can be seen pretty easily, one nearby…
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Presidential Places
The mailbag continues to overflow with great topics submitted by readers. It’s wonderful to receive this kind of feedback. I hope to create articles around many of your observations and recommendations as I find the right context and opportunity.[1] Recently I heard from Jason J. who wanted to know if I’d been aware of a…
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Lancaster Minnesota to Lancashire England
Slow news day. Let’s see if I can cobble something together. I opened up Google Analytics in map mode and noticed a small, isolated dot. It fell suspiciously near the Minnesota-Manitoba-North Dakota Highpoint. So I drilled down a little further and found a visitor from the tiny town of Lancaster, Minnesota. I’d never heard of…
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The Returns Are In. Maybe.
I’ve been meaning to fill you in on the results of a referendum I mentioned a few weeks ago. Approval would have moved the Benton Co., Washington county seat to from Prosser to Kennewick. The vote happened more than a week ago. Only now do I feel there’s enough certainty to announce a probable result.…