Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Event

  • Reconciliation

    I mentioned Brian Brown’s wonderful Vanishing South Georgia website previously as I explored leaf-vein patterns left behind by swamp drainage. Brian uses an interesting minimalist approach. It allows imagery to portray a wistful almost melancholy longing for a heritage slowly slipping away. He’s attempting to preserve it all visually before it decomposes back into the…

  • Wallace Redux

    I’ve never been to Wallace, Idaho but I simply couldn’t get that place out of my head in spite of the controversy[1] surrounding its Center of the Universe claim. Seemingly, there is an odd story for each of its 960 residents. This one involves a stoplight. It all comes down to geography and in this…

  • Center of the Universe

    Colonel William R. Wallace built a pioneering homestead within a narrow valley in the northern Idaho panhandle. However, he probably didn’t realize he’d settled at the Center of the Universe. We can forgive that. In 1884 he couldn’t possibly have know he was sitting atop a billion ounces of silver either, or next to what…

  • Lockdown

    Twelve Mile Circle is getting ready for Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009. Everyone is excited. Even one of the local brewpubs is getting in on the action. The Looming Traffic Nightmare I’ve watched in amazement as officials have leveraged the local geography to establish a security perimeter. From Virginia it’s a simple a matter of…

  • 2008 Recap

    The recently concluded year marks the first complete calendar cycle for Twelve Mile Circle. By now I’ve sweated and obsessed over the web logs in typical fashion to see what conclusions I can draw. Most visibly, only the splash page even cracks the Top 25 on my website. This year one of my other obsessions…

  • Os Confederados

    Immigration fueled the growth of the United States. It long served as an attractive destination for those seeking refuge or opportunity. Within that rich historical context it’s difficult to conceive of emigration, of people desiring to leave or even desperate to do so. However, that’s exactly what happened with the Confederados. A Society Turned Upside…

  • 75 Years of Drinking

    Today is the 75th Anniversary(1) of the repeal of Prohibition in the United States. In addition to my odd fascination with weird geography, I’m a horrible beer snob(2) and sometimes I even find ways to tie my fascination with beer and geography together. So I think of this as a big day for Twelve Mile…

  • A Colonial Capital

    I spent some of last week on business travel to Williamsburg, Virginia. Unfortunately I sat in a conference room for most of the time. However, I did manage to make it out to the historic sites for a few brief moments. Geography made Williamsburg the capital of the Virginia Colony and geography later took that…

  • Halloween Spots

    It’s Halloween here in the United States, so for a little fun today let’s feature some geography that fits within that spooky theme. One of the more obvious choices would be Salem, Massachusetts, site of the famous witch trials in 1692-1693. Over 150 people were imprisoned for witchcraft, with nineteen accused victims hanged and one…

  • Foreclosed

    A young couple with children purchased a home in February 2006. Today the house sits gutted; bought out by a speculator who will probably flip it when the spring market opens in a few months. I never met the family. They lived around the corner and we exchange waves as I strolled by on my…