Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Going Postal, Part 1

    I alluded to postal ZIP codes in the recent Zip Lines and I’ll carry that theme through the next couple of articles. I’d stumbled upon the United States Postal Service’s Fun Facts. Someday maybe I’ll explore what exactly makes a fact “fun” although for now I think I’ll simply steal liberally from that page and…

  • Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

    I pondered Zip Lines recently. Actually I’d been researching postal ZIP Codes and wondering how I’d missed the 50th Birthday of the system in 2013. Then I noticed an auto-suggestion for Zip Lines and it zipped me straight down a protracted tangent metaphorically speaking. I decided to find the longest Zip Line in the world,…

  • Few Remain

    It had been a long time since I checked the visitor logs for new readers arriving from countries that had not ever landed on the pages of Twelve Mile Circle previously. I’d pretty much given up on that specific pursuit after tracking seven years of 12MC, figuring I’d already received what I was going to…

  • Particularly Possessive

    I noticed that Prince George’s County, Queen Anne’s County and St. Mary’s County — all in Maryland — included the genitive apostrophe to form their possessive constructions. I’d always taken it on faith that the United States Board on Geographic Names disallowed apostrophes for that specific purpose. That’s how we ended-up with Harpers Ferry and…

  • Can’t Get Enough of Kossuth

    The formation and expansion of Kossuth County in the 1850’s discussed in The Odd Case of Iowa’s Largest County pointed to a simple question. So who was Kossuth? That string led me to Lajos Kossuth. I was wholly unfamiliar with the name. Also I wondered why a county deep within the American heartland would honor…

  • The Odd Case of Iowa’s Largest County

    I had a fascinating Twitter conversation with Steve from Connecticut Museum Quest recently. He has a much more interesting Twitter feed @CTMQ than my mundane @TheReal12MC. Seriously, I don’t have much to say on Twitter other than using it to announce each new article and maybe posting a few beer pictures occasionally. A few people…

  • India Loves 12MC

    Twelve Mile Circle noticed increasing visitor traffic from India over the last couple of years and particularly within the last several months. Maybe that’s a recognition of growing Internet access within the subcontinent and perhaps a general improvement in its technological infrastructure. I’d prefer to think of it in simpler terms: India loves 12MC. This…

  • Republic of Indian Stream

    The short-lived Republic of Indian Stream owed its existence to frustrations rooted in divergent interpretations of the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War between the United States and Great Britain. The treaty included a number of provisions including those designed to establish firm boundaries between Canada and the United States. Ironically, a…

  • Colonias

    I failed to mention a specific Milwaukee example in the recent I Before E Like in Milwaukie article. That was intentional. I noticed a rather unusual reference included within the Geographic Names Information System that deserved further observation. This one featured two adjoining neighborhoods. They had the dubious distinction of sharing a name with a…

  • I Before E Like in Milwaukie

    “I Before E Like in Milwaukie.” If that phrase doesn’t grate on one’s nerves or otherwise sound completely wrong, it probably means the reader came from a location outside of the United States. Or came from Oregon. Because Milwaukie does exist in Oregon. I discovered that recently while examining 12MC reader statistics. Someone visited the…

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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…