-
Recent Posts
Archives
My website
Categories
Meta
Blog Stats
- 35,750 hits
Author Archives: lynngarthwaiteblog
California – size matters!
The massive size of California, much like Texas and Alaska, completely violates Thomas Jefferson’s intention that all states should be roughly equal in size. How did California avoid being broken up into three or four smaller states? The explanation … Continue reading
Round headed Delaware
Delaware has a feature that no other state has – a perfect arc for its northern border. Most other colonial borders were either formed by meandering rivers, straight lines from point A to point B, or were carved out by … Continue reading
Nevada has a point
Why does Nevada come to a point at the bottom? It didn’t always look that way. When the territory of Nevada was first being formed the boundary lines created a more rectangular shape with a sideways notch cut out to … Continue reading
Alabama looks in a mirror
Alabama looks almost exactly like Mississippi in a mirror. Previous to Alabama becoming a state the country had admitted 21 states to the union and not one of them looked like any of the others. Why did Alabama end up … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alabama, Georgia territory, Mississippi, Mississippi territory, War of 1812
Leave a comment
Alaska and its panhandle
Unlike the lower 48 states, there weren’t too many border decisions when the United States bought Alaska in the 1867 transaction that came to be known as Seward’s Folly. The space was essentially already defined because Russia and Canada had … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alaska, Alaska panhandle, Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, Seward's Folly
5 Comments
Did we steal a chunk of Canada?
When you look at the map of the United States, Maine looks like it was a late add-on, as if the original settlers wanted to tack on another state to extend as far into the other British territory (Canada) … Continue reading