{"id":18004,"date":"2017-10-29T08:39:32","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T13:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=18004"},"modified":"2021-10-31T05:38:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T10:38:31","slug":"another-town-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/another-town-roundup\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Town Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve collected unusual town names for awhile. They often came up as I researched Twelve Mile Circle articles or when I checked the daily log files. Generally they don’t make those “weird names” lists found elsewhere on the Intertubes. I find them endlessly fascinating for some unknown reason. Then I make a note of them and promise to return. Occasionally I’ll post an article after I collect enough of them and I want to cut down my pile of unwritten topics. So let’s do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Downtown<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Already on the very first entry I broke my rules for this article. Seattle’s Capitol Hill<\/a> was a neighborhood not a town (map<\/a>). Nonetheless, I wondered why Capitol Hill even existed as a name there. Nonetheless, the Capitol Hill in another<\/em> Washington came to mind, and that one had an actual capitol on a hill. Nobody could claim the same for the Seattle version. Rather, the state capitol sat about sixty miles (100 kilometres) farther south in Olympia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to History Link<\/a>, “the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History,” the name probably came from one of two (or both) alternatives. It happened in 1901, courtesy of a local land developer, James Moore. That was certain. By one theory he hoped to persuade the state government “to move its business from Olympia onto Prospect Street<\/em>.” By another, his wife came from Colorado and the name referenced Capitol Hill in Denver. The one in Denver, by the way, actually contained the state capitol<\/a>. Sadly, Seattle’s Capitol Hill remains capitol-less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Future City, Illinois<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Future<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to make a crack about Future City (map<\/a>) not looking like it had much of a future. It looked completely desolate. However, irony seemed cruel after I researched its history. Future City sat near the southern tip of Illinois, just north of Cairo and the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. African Americans founded it around the turn of the last century as a refuge from racism and lynchings in nearby Cairo. They created their own self-contained settlement and named it optimistically. It promised a better future. Several hundred people lived there a century ago. Now, only a handful remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I visited that river confluence<\/a> a few years ago. It floods, a lot. Naturally, Future City flooded regularly even as early as the disastrous floods of 1912 and 1913. Three times residents needed to rebuild from scratch. Meanwhile, nearby Cairo went into a long, slow economic decline. River traffic decreased as roads and rails rose, and its geographic placement became increasingly irrelevant. People in Future City depended on jobs in Cairo so their dream declined with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Layman, Ohio<\/h2>\n\n\n\n