{"id":8580,"date":"2011-06-12T08:34:38","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T13:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=8580"},"modified":"2022-04-05T06:06:08","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T11:06:08","slug":"pipeline-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/pipeline-crossroads\/","title":{"rendered":"Pipeline Crossroads of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems like every time I run an article about an odd appendage cobbled to the boundaries of a U.S. county, an interested reader brings an equally unusual shape to my attention. That’s great — keep them coming! The latest example arrived courtesy of Scott Surgent<\/a>. He made a comment on the Merrick Strip<\/a> article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Tom Green County was once much larger, but one new county — Irion — was created in such a way that it would have cleaved Tom Green into two discrete halves. Thus, the north boundary of Irion was set so that a narrow strip of land would connect the main (east) part of the county (which includes the city of San Angelo) and the western half. For a time, it had a dumbbell shape. The west half later formed into Reagan County, but the vestigial strip remained in place.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Naturally I had to take a closer look (map<\/a>). Tom Green County — named for a Confederate general rather the Canadian actor with the same name although there are other Canadians in Texas<\/a> — includes a roughly rectangular appendage off its northwestern corner measuring about 2 by 24 miles. However, I found something else interesting. The county included a strange network of structures imprinted on the landscape. So I drilled down into the image and it looked a bit like a circuit board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Black Gold<\/h2>\n\n\n\n