# Geographic anomaly: Tiny bits of Michigan that drain into the Mississippi. Share your geo-anomalies **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 16, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033 "2020-02-16T17:56:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/21 "2020-02-17T00:21:59Z")
Another place that feeds two seas: the Danube sources above the [Danube Sinkhole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube_Sinkhole), where the Rhine is currently undertaking a stream capture of the upper Danube. A lot of the water disappears from the surface only to appear miles away and feed the Rhine, and whether any water makes it past the sinkholes and thus on to the Black Sea depends on the water flow. Eventually the underground passages might be eroded enough to take all the water away and complete the stream capture, leaving other streams to be the true source of the Danube. ---
**Author:** ![Ynnad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4491bb/32.png) [@Ynnad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ynnad)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/22 "2020-02-17T00:28:12Z")
I’ve always wanted to go to the Kentucky Bend just so I could say I’ve been there. > **[Kentucky Bend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Bend)** > > The Kentucky Bend, variously called the New Madrid Bend, Madrid Bend, Bessie Bend, or Bubbleland, is an exclave of Fulton County, Kentucky, encircled by the states of Tennessee and Missouri. It is a portion of a peninsula defined by an oxbow loop meander of the Mississippi River, and its inclusion in the state of Kentucky stems from uncertainties of the course of the Mississippi River when the boundary between Tennessee and Kentucky was established. > Kentucky Bend is the extreme southwestern ... ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/23 "2020-02-17T00:49:32Z")
There are a couple little bits of the state of Delaware on the east side of the Delaware River. On land you can only get to them through New Jersey. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/24 "2020-02-17T02:45:35Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > … including Isa Lake, WY which drains into **both** the Atlantic and Pacific oceans … It’s worth noting that the water that departs this lake (which is actually more like a pond) to the west ends up in the Atlantic[sup]1[/sup], whereas the water headed east is bound for the Pacific[sup]2[/sup]. 1 - via the Firehole, Madison, Missouri, and Mississippi rivers. 2 - via the Lewis, Snake, and Columbia rivers. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/25 "2020-02-17T03:10:15Z")
Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time. Except the Hopi nation. Which means there’s a little bubble of MDT in the middle of a sea of MST during the summer. Which can make scheduling activities interesting if you are staying in Tuba City - you cross the street and lose an hour. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/26 "2020-02-17T04:06:00Z")
Not too long ago, I read that a tiny bit of South Carolina is in the Mississippi drainage basin. I’m talking a few acres right on the straight portion of the North Carolina border in either Pickens County or Oconee County. It’s swampy land so the direction of flow is not immediately obvious. The fact was discovered quite recently by a teenager poring over online maps, and confirmed by the USGS. Unfortunately I can’t find the story online now. There used to be a few square miles of Dakota Territory separated from the rest of the territory by hundreds of miles. It was created by accident when Wyoming Territory was carved out from Dakota Territory before the course of the Continental Divide was known. It’s called [Lost Dakota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Dakota). ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/27 "2020-02-17T04:15:57Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > [Kaskaskia](https://americanprofile.com/articles/kaskaskia-the-only-illinois-town-west-of-the-mississippi-river/), IL is the only Illinois town west of the Mississippi. And only because the river decided to follow a new course after a flood and screw everyone up. Carter Lake, Iowa is also the only Iowa town west of the Mississippi, for similar reasons. > **[Carter Lake, Iowa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Lake,_Iowa)** > > Carter Lake is a city in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. A suburb of Omaha, Nebraska, it sits surrounding the south and west sides of the region's major airport, Eppley Airfield. It is separated from the rest of Iowa by the Missouri River, effectively making it an exclave. The population was 3,791 at the 2020 census. > Carter Lake is an example of the border irregularities of the United States, being the only city in Iowa located west of the Missouri River. In March 1877, a flood redi... ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/28 "2020-02-17T04:30:02Z")
Speaking of Wyoming, two interesting (to me) aberrations: 1. If you travel south on US 20 through the Wind River Canyon, t[he river looks like it’s flowing uphill.](https://wyominglife.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/water-travels-uphill-in-the-wind-river-canyon/) (Does an optical illusion count as a geographic aberration?) 2. Rocks on the summit of [Heart Mountain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_Mountain_(Wyoming)) are older than those at the base. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/29 "2020-02-17T04:31:32Z")
Fishers Island near Connecticut and Rhode Island is part of New York, even though logically it should be part of CT. (CT gave haven to a political enemy of King Someone (James II?), so he punished the colony.) Anyway, because Fishers is so close to the other two states, there’s a tripoint (point where three states meet) in the ocean. It’s the only oceanic tripoint in the US. In the ocean, states only get 3 nautical miles of territory, but for lakes, state territories have no such limit. This means that there’s two tripoints in the middle of Lake Michigan so Illinois actually borders on Michigan in the middle of that lake. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/30 "2020-02-17T04:53:48Z")
> [@bizerta](#): > > The Illinois & Michigan Canal allows Lake Michigan to also flow to the Mississippi River. Well, the Illinois & Michigan Canal has been filled in for more than 70 years. But the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal supplanted it in 1900 and allows the same trick. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/31 "2020-02-17T08:04:18Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > 1. If you travel south on US 20 through the Wind River Canyon, t[he river looks like it’s flowing uphill.](https://wyominglife.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/water-travels-uphill-in-the-wind-river-canyon/) (Does an optical illusion count as a geographic aberration?) There is (or was) a spot in the hills near Los Angeles with a similar illusion. Pull your car off to the side of the road, put it in neutral and take your foot off the brake – and your car rolls uphill! It’s just an odd illusion due to the lay of the land there. High School driver ed teachers always liked to take student drivers there. In more recent years, I tried to find the place again, unsuccessfully. As best I could tell (if I was even in the right area) the vicinity is all built up beyond recognition with houses and streets now (it was just a back-hills country road then), and maybe there’s no place left where it works like that. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/32 "2020-02-17T11:17:56Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time. > Except the Hopi nation. > Which means there’s a little bubble of MDT in the middle of a sea of MST during the summer. Which can make scheduling activities interesting if you are staying in Tuba City - you cross the street and lose an hour. It’s the Navajo Nation which observes DST; the Hopi do not. **Colibri** , my father and I went on a tour of Panama. He has an excellent sense of direction. He practically went insane in Panama trying to figure out directions and which body of water we were looking at. I can get lost in a Sears, so I just stayed bewildered. On the other hand we saw wild Panamanian night monkeys and some frog or other which he immediately ID’d, so those were big plusses. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/33 "2020-02-17T11:57:40Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Carter Lake, Iowa is also the only Iowa town west of the Mississippi, for similar reasons. > > [Carter Lake, Iowa - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Lake,_Iowa) \*Missouri River. All of Iowa is west of the Mississippi, but Carter Lake is stuck on the Omaha side of the Missouri. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/34 "2020-02-17T12:29:13Z")
Panama Canal is east of Miami FL. It’s further from one end of Tennessee to the other than from Tennessee to Canada. Number of US states with some portion of their territory north of some part of Canada? 26 ---
**Author:** ![Kimble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimble/32/19185_2.png) [@Kimble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimble)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/35 "2020-02-17T12:31:53Z")
Pretty much all of the water in Tennessee flows to the Mississippi River. The water that doesn’t go directly there goes via the Ohio River and a few of its tributaries. However, out of the 95 counties, the southern quadrant of Bradley County and a sliver of southwest Polk County (the two easternmost counties on the southern border) drain to the Gulf of Mexico through Mobile Bay via the Conasauga, Oostanaula, Coosa, Alabama, and Mobile Rivers. Also, due to the shifting of the Mississippi River, some of Tennessee is on its west bank, surrounded by Arkansas and the river. (The most notable part is Reverie, TN. There’s no bridge across the Mississippi for miles and miles, so the kids there go to school in Arkansas and Tennessee reimburses Arkansas for their costs.) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/36 "2020-02-17T12:57:36Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Not too long ago, I read that a tiny bit of South Carolina is in the Mississippi drainage basin. I’m talking a few acres right on the straight portion of the North Carolina border in either Pickens County or Oconee County. It’s swampy land so the direction of flow is not immediately obvious. The fact was discovered quite recently by a teenager poring over online maps, and confirmed by the USGS. Unfortunately I can’t find the story online now. I have long suspected this, and tried to find that bit of SC that drains to the Mississippi on Google Earth, but have been unable to locate it. I do hope someone can find a cite for this as I’d love to pursue this bit of trivia. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/37 "2020-02-17T13:30:10Z")
There’s a couple parts of Indiana on the west side of the Wabash River. My road atlas doesn’t show any towns in either one. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one such place on the Ohio River, but can’t remember where. The borders on the Ohio don’t go through the main channel, but rather along the northern shore, just like the Potomac. That makes it more likely that something like this would have happened on that river. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/38 "2020-02-17T13:32:32Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > There is (or was) a spot in the hills near Los Angeles with a similar illusion. Pull your car off to the side of the road, put it in neutral and take your foot off the brake – and your car rolls uphill! It’s just an odd illusion due to the lay of the land there. High School driver ed teachers always liked to take student drivers there. I found a similar road on the way to Yosemite National Park, ca. 1967. Arriving from the west, from San Francisco, the road rises very gradually and the mountains on both sides of the road get increasingly steep. For miles, it felt like we were going down, although my in-car altimeter and logic said we were going up. It was sure to be an illusion, so we stopped the car and tried to roll a soda can on the road (very light traffic in April, in those days). The can refused to roll the way we thought it should, down in the forward direction, so we definitely were subject to a natural illusion. It can be persuasive. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/39 "2020-02-17T13:35:58Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I thought it was cool to drive from Istanbul (on the Eurasian Tectonic Plate) to the rest of Turkey (on the Anatolian Tectonic Plate) via the Bosphorus Strait Bridge. I’m not positive, but I think it’s the only city in the world that straddles two plates. Never heard of San Francisco? Part on the Pacific, part on the N.A. plate. They had a famous quake 100+ years ago you might have heard of. (Plus several other smaller [cities](https://www.mapsofworld.com/answers/k-12-resources/cities-on-san-andreas-fault/).) If I stand at the top of my driveway, I’m at eye-level with a continental divide. Can anybody else here claim something like that from their property? Sounds anomalous to me. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033/40 "2020-02-17T13:42:19Z")
There’s a stream near [Scranton](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4813781,-75.6740108,3a,75y,67.99h,81.12t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRmWIf--5TPYMtU4kmxkwfg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656) that does this to me. If you look at it northward on the road you see the stream angle toward the center part of the valley, much lower than the hill you are about to climb: surely the water moves toward that faraway gap in the hills. Then look southbound and all you can see is the hill rising slightly. Yet the water moves southbound toward the seeming higher ground. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-anomaly-tiny-bits-of-michigan-that-drain-into-the-mississippi-share-your-geo-anomalies/848033.md?page=3)