Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • County Highpointers Association

    Twelve Mile Circle features another extremely specialized geography website today, this one hosted by the County Highpointers Association. It’s easy to find information on the highest point in a country or even one of the individual United States. This information is scattered across the Web in a million different places. But that’s not the case…

  • Lake Okeechobee’s Five Counties

    Lake Okeechobee (map) dominates South Florida’s landscape. It’s a massive liquid patch along a narrow peninsula. It’s as if some giant creature found the lower portion of the state a convenient coaster for the world’s largest mug. Additionally it is the second largest freshwater lake contained wholly within the United States. Only one of the…

  • Santa Claus, Indiana

    In southern Indiana east of Evansville, a town of 2,000 people exudes the holiday spirit year-round. They gave it the curious name “Santa Claus” (map). What the Clause? Various sources including Wikipedia claim that the town was originally called Santa Fe when it was founded in 1856. However residents had to change the name when…

  • Grotian Traditions, Thalwegs and Winner Take All

    Rivers are a natural boundaries and a pretty obvious way to determine who controls land on either bank. Well, not withstanding occasional riverbed shifts. However rivers are also natural resources in their own right. They provide drinking water, irrigation, food and transportation. Those who control territory abutting a river naturally want to own and control…

  • Carter Lake, Iowa

    Strange Maps recently featured “Shifting Like A Snake: Ancient Mississippi Courses” [link no longer works] with a beautiful rendition of its meandering riverbanks over time. The relatively flat middle portion of the United States seems particularly susceptible to these types of changes along its grand watersheds, whether the Mississippi, Missouri, Platte or others. I believe…

  • Canada’s 4 Corners

    A spot exists in the United States where four states come together at a common point. Naturally they call it the Four Corners. A paved road goes right up to it and for a modest admission fee, visitors can touch four states simultaneously. Then they can take pictures and shop for Navajo crafts set up…

  • Corners

    I have a fascination with political boundaries, whether national, state/provincial, county, or town. Especially, I like corners where three or more join together at a point. On my website I’ve compiled trip reports about a few of those locations. Most well known, it includes the renowned 4-Corners of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Additionally I…

  • 7 Flags Over Texas?

    In a recent entry I provided a listing of the six flags that make up the famous “Six Flags Over Texas.” What is less known — and what many Texans along the southeastern border with Mexico believe — is that there were actually SEVEN flags over Texas. Had history gone a little differently another flag…

  • 6 Flags Over Texas

    Conventional wisdom notes that six national flags flew over the State of Texas at one time or another. It’s colloquial to the point of the Six Flags amusement parks taking their name from it. But what are the six flags? Spain France Mexico Republic of Texas Confederate States of America United States of America

  • Reelfoot Lake

    There is only one large natural lake in Tennessee. It straddles the Lake Co. / Obion Co. border just a few miles from the Mississippi River. Some scientists speculate that Reelfoot Lake formed as a result of the massive New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 – 1812. Their theory does fall within the realm of possibility.…

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  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…