The BGN (US Board on Geographic Names) has a policy of not allowing possessive apostrophes in names. They’ve made a few exceptions over the years for natural features (notably Martha’s Vinyard), but as far as I can tell, none at all for names of towns.
When the policy was first promulgated (1891), the Post Office did their best to remove apostrophes from town names. So far, the only one I can be sure of is Harpers Ferry, WV. Does anyone know of any others that lost their apostrophe?
Note: they wouldn’t necessarily have been removed in 1891, but within a few years of that date. Also note that it was only possessive apostrophes, so, for example, Coeur d’Alene ID and the two O’Fallon’s (IL and MO) kept theirs.
Dix’s Grant NH is officially Dixs Grant. There are several possessive names on mostly unpopulated townships in NH, I presume all the them are officially without apostrophes.
I always forget something when I start a thread. This time, I didn’t emphasize enough that I want places that lost their apostrophe within a few years of 1891. Any time in the 1890s will do. But I’d like some kind of cite, even if it’s just Wikipedia.
Those aren’t, or rather, shouldn’t be apostrophes. They’re 'okinas:
Keyboards don’t have that character, so the apostrophe is usually used instead. That is, when it’s not left out altogether. At any rate, even if they are apostrophes, they’re not possessive ones.
You think this would be easy to find, especially since an estimated 250,000 [!] apostrophes have been removed.
That article also details the five exceptions.
But I’m not finding any articles that do more than mention one or two, and those seldom give dates.
Surprisingly, even Mark Monmonier’s From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Mountain: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame, a great small book I’d highly recommend, doesn’t have more than a glancing reference to possessives.
I suspect the vast majority of those removals happened after the GNIS database was created. Having the names computerized would facilitate the process. You can query the database here (click on the “Search Domestic Names” button.)
But the Post Office would have had an easier time, since they knew all the local office names and could dictate the name change. There would rarely be much local opposition. Well, OK Pittsburgh objected to losing their H, but that was a unusual.
Grants Pass in SW Oregon used to have an apostrophe. Their website says it was dropped a bit after 1900, which is probably outside your date range of interest.
I could understand if a lazy database administrator made such a rule nowadays, because some systems treat apostrophes and quotes and such in special ways, not as ordinary text. But that clearly did not apply in the 1890s. Maybe their typewriters didn’t have an apostrophe key?
(Maybe we can start a conspiracy theory, linking this to the question of whether there’s an apostrophe in President’s Day and Mother’s Day? )
No one seems to know. George Stewart in Names on the Land, says the policy started with the first report of the Board. BGN was formed in 1890, with the first report a year later. That report included 13 principles they would follow, starting with “The spelling and pronunciation which is sanctioned by local usage should be followed.” But 9 of those principles dictated specific things that were to be changed. Possessive apostrophes, diacritics, and hyphens were out. The word City, -town, h of -burgh, ugh or -borough, and C.H. for Court House should all be dropped. Centre should be respelled as Center and multiple word names should be written as a single word.
Of course, not all of these were completely adopted. Diacritics were removed pretty much completely, but there were exceptions to all the others, especially the multi-word one.
In my state, the legislature at one point dictated (and implemented in their bills) that the word “employee” be spelled with only one “e” at the end.* The intention, as I have heard it, was efficiency and savings on printing the statute books. All those "e"s add up, you know. They also used “driver license.”
I would not be surprised if the rules listed by the OP were driven by the same kind of efficiency theory. Dropping letters, apostrophes and spaces would all theoretically save time and ink, I guess.
St. Marys, Kansas dates back to the 1860’s, which is earlier than the OP specified. But it was named after St. Mary’s Mission so it must have lost the apostrophe somewhere along the way.
The removal, or rather not using Apostrophes is a cartographic standard. I don’t remember the actual reasoning for it off the top of my head and all of my books are in the office, that I haven’t seen in two years. I believe though that it’s for readability.
For proof take a look at the 1885 USGS topo of Harpers Ferry that did not have an apostrophe. You can also see Snickers Gap in the southwest corner of the map, just south of the corner of West Virginia and Virginia. You need to scroll to the Harpers Ferry area and click on the area and it will give a list of maps.
It’s not just apostrophes though, spaces will get removed as well at times. Lilypons, MD was named after Lily Pons and the space was removed. I might be able to find a cite for that.
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