Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Split in Two: St. Martin Parish

    St. Martin Parish, Louisiana poses an odd situation (map). Neighboring Iberia Parish jabs straight through the middle of St. Martin and cleaves it into two completely different portions separated by several miles. The St. Martin Parish Clerk of the Court explains that, “In 1868, Iberia Parish was formed from parts of St. Martin and St.…

  • Four Corners

    Four Corners is a unique spot in the United States. It’s the only U.S. location where four states join together with a common boundary – a quadripoint. Thus, a visitor can touch Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona simultaneously. Maps of the area show this situation clearly and anyone can get there by automobile with…

  • Walk Across the Mississippi River

    Can any mortal human walk across the Mississippi River? Yes. It’s easy to cross the Mississippi at its source. The Mississippi River begins its long journey in northern Minnesota at Lake Itasca. Here the Mississippi starts as a small stream. Just about anyone can stroll right across it using conveniently placed stepping-stones. This humble beginning…

  • Inconvenient Rivers

    Those pesky rivers! People go to great trouble to designate a river as a boundary, decide who has ownership or how it will be split, draw all those maps, and then the river has the audacity to jump its bank and form a new channel. Does this mean the boundary automatically changes too? Of course…

  • Anomalies In and Around Washington, DC

    Geo-oddities exist everywhere. I thought I would focus some love and attention on a few of them near where I live. Likely you can find unusual features where you live too. Let’s take a closer look at some of them. Obsolete Boundary Stones The District of Columbia once covered an exact ten miles square. In…

  • Point Roberts – Stranded by an International Border

    Point Roberts, Washington cannot be reached by land from the rest of the United States. One must drive first into Canada, curve around Boundary Bay, and then cross the border again to re-enter the United States at this remote corner. The establishment of a border between the United States and Canada along the 49th parallel…

  • Island on an Island

    Sometimes an island has a pond or lake that also happens to contain an island. Twelve Mile Circle likes to call that second, subsidiary island an “island-on-an-island.” Beaver Island, Michigan Beaver Island is the largest on Lake Michigan. It contains several lowlands, marshy areas, and ponds which makes it a perfect candidate for islands-on-an-island. We…

  • Pardon the Dust

    You’ll notice some unusual activity on the Twelve Mile Circle over the next several days. I will be transferring some of my “old” geography pages into blog format to make it easier for me to manage content and so viewers won’t have to ping back-and-forth between sites. Twelve Mile Circle grew up from a series…

  • Gambling Banned in Nevada!… (in tiny pockets)

    Think of Nevada and the cacophony of Las Vegas springs to mind as a reflex.[1] It’s a familiar refrain that repeats across hundreds of desert towns large and small. Envision a symbiotic intertwining of a state economy and a robust gaming industry. Entire towns have even blossomed simply to entice the residents of stricter states…

  • Union Jack over the USA

    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland proudly flies the Union Flag, often called the Union Jack. It retains an official or semi-official designation throughout the Commonwealth Realm. Oddly, it also flies over a tiny corner of the United States with the explicit approval of the American government. I’m not talking about Hawaii…

Latest Comments

  2. what is the total population that lives now in the land given back to Virginia should it be part of…

  5. Park ranger at Chalmette (New Orleans) Battlefield let me pull up the Union Jack 20 years ago. My dad would…