While I was in school, I once did a project for a class where I calculated the optimal placement of Montana’s capital based on the graph of driving distances between Montana towns weighted by their populations. I was quite surprised when Helena actually popped out. I was expecting Great Falls, since Billings and Great Falls dominate the population statistics, and places like Missoula and Butte were far closer to Great Falls than Billings. Helena trimmed enough off the distance from Billings to make up for adding distance from Great Falls.
If by “capital” you mean “where the Governor lives,” yep, Hot Rod has already done it
I know that when PA decided to move their capital to Harrisburg, the decision came down to either picking H’burg or Williamsport. H’burg won out, mainly because it was about half-way between the two major cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Funny to think that my old stomping grounds narrowly missed out on being the capital region.
True, but it’s also the furthest navigable point up the Potomac. Washington had already helped lay out Alexandria there a few decades earlier and Georgetown was already a thriving port town (biggest tobacco exporting city in the country by 1790).
It’s not like there was nothing in the area when they decided to make it the nation’s capital. In fact, it was a pretty good choice - pretty much in the middle, a growing port center and the closest navigable point to the Ohio Valley - which became important when they opened up the C & O Canal.
Ottawa was more than a lumber town, and it’s not in the middle. As Bookeeper points out, the choice was heavily influenced by military reasons. In fact, the reason Ottawa existed was for military reasons - it’s at the junction of the Ottawa River and the Rideau Canal, which was built to ensure an internal water transport link between Kingston and Montreal if the Yanks invaded and blockaded the St. Lawrence. By the time Victoria made her choice, the military concerns were still substantial, given the U.S. Civil War and the possibility that the Union might turn its attention northwards.
