Category: U.S. States
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Farm to Market Roads
I realized I might give away the secret for today’s topic when I released my recent article, Farm to Market. Sure enough, loyal and very observant reader Benjamin Lukoff noticed the foreshadowing and mentioned something familiar in his comment.[1] Another article also figures into the triad although it’s not nearly as intuitive. The strangely popular…
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Jackson’s Mill (39°05’49.19″N, 80°28’00.72″W)
It’s not everyday that an advertisement comes complete with a mysterious Latitude/Longitude coordinate. My local newspaper included a special section on the upcoming 150th anniversary of the Civil War in the United States. This image from West Virginia filled the entire back page. The copy reads, “A nation was nearly torn in half. A state…
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County with (Another) State’s Name
It makes great intuitive sense for a state to include a component county with the same name. Imagine living in Oklahoma City. Not only do the residents live in a city named Oklahoma, they also live in a county and a state named Oklahoma. That’s not imaginative, in fact it’s rather boring. Ditto for Arkansas,…
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Bakersfield: A Better California Capital?
We had a lot of fun and some great comments during the discussion of state capitals most inconvenient to the residents of the states’ largest cities. I mentioned that I’d found the U.S. Census Bureau’s list of Population Centers by State from the year 2000 census. Naturally I took the last two questions from the…
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Worst State Capital Location
Loyal Reader “Greg” read my recent article about whether the county seat of Benton Co., Washington should move because the center of population shifted overwhelmingly to the east. Greg said, “To go up an order of subdivision, I wonder what US state has the smallest capital city by population compared to (a) the state as…
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Texas Borderlocking
It’s been a long time since I’ve touched upon the borderlocking phenomenon. Many new readers have entered into the Twelve Mile Circle in subsequent months. Of course they have no idea what I’m talking about. Others may have a vague recollection but might need to refresh their memories. Go ahead and open Layers of Borderlocking…
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Hurricane Katrina: Family Memories 5 Years Later
Has it really been five years already? The memories are starting to fade but they come back to life in ghostly form on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, when the news media forces me to pay attention to them. Our family was one of the lucky ones. I can’t and won’t compare our story to…
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What Coast are They Guarding, Exactly?
Obituaries for the late Senator Robert Byrd remarked upon many things. These included his uncanny ability to deliver vast piles of Federal dollars to his home state of West Virginia. One can debate whether that’s a positive attribute or a negative, but either way it is hard to dispute that Sen. Byrd excelled at this…
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Kenai Adventure, Part 4
The visit to the Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula is winding down. Unfortunately I will be making my way back home over the next couple of days. Those of you who follow Twelve Mile Circle for its odd geography can rejoice. I’ll return to a regular schedule of useless trivia that only we enjoy. Well, unless something…
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Four Runways – Four Miles
I arrived in Alaska yesterday, in Anchorage specifically. I’d posted an appeal for Alaskan geo-oddities before I left and I’ve received a number of awesome recommendations from the generous readers of Twelve Mile Circle. First up was reader “Steve” who sent me an idea by email: “in Anchorage, there is a spot within four miles…